Taxi (2004/I)

User Rating:

4.2/10   

Director:

Tim Story

Writers (WGA):

Luc Besson (earlier screenplay)
Robert Ben Garant (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

8 October 2004 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Comedy | Crime | Thriller

Tagline:

Take a Ride on the Wild Side.

Plot:

A mouthy and feisty taxicab driver has hot tips for a green and inept cop set on solving a string of New York City bank robberies committed by a quartet of female Brazilian bank robbers.

Plot Keywords:

Brazilian | Driving | Taxicab | Undercover | Bank Robbery

Awards:

1 win & 5 nominations

US TV Schedule:

Mon. Nov. 16	10:30 PM	FX
Tue. Nov. 17	10:00 AM	FX

Cast

Queen Latifah	...	Isabelle 'Belle' Williams
Jimmy Fallon	...	Andrew 'Andy' Washburn
Henry Simmons	...	Jesse
Jennifer Esposito	...	Lt. Marta Robbins
Gisele Bündchen	...	Vanessa
Ana Cristina de Oliveira	...	Redhead
Ingrid Vandebosch	...	Third Robber
Magali Amadei	...	Fourth Robber
Ann-Margret	...	Washburn's Mom
Christian Kane	...	Agent Mullins
Boris McGiver	...	Franklin
Adrian Martinez	...	Brasilian Man
Joe Lisi	...	Mr. Scalia
Bryna Weiss	...	Mrs. Scalia
GQ	...	Stopwatch Messenger

Also Known As:

New York Taxi (France)
Taxi 2004 (UK) (promotional title)

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for language, sensuality and brief violence.

Runtime:

97 min | USA:104 min (extended version)

Country:

USA | France

Language:

English | Portuguese | Spanish

Colour:

Colour

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby Digital

Certification:

Norway:7 | Canada:PG (Ontario) | Iceland:10 (original rating) | Iceland:12 (video rating) | Argentina:13 | Australia:M | Brazil:12 | Finland:K-11 | Germany:6 | Netherlands:MG6 | Philippines:PG-13 | Singapore:PG | UK:12A | USA:PG-13 | Ireland:12PG | Ireland:15 (DVD rating) | South Korea:12

Filming Locations:

23rd St. & Madison Avenue, Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA

Company:

Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

Trivia:

'Ingrid Vandebosch'_ one of the female robbers in this film, is married to Jeff Gordon, who has a cameo in this film.

Goofs:

Continuity: When Washburn reaches to grab his gun while it is on the backseat of the taxi, his butt gets in Belle's way. However, in one shot of Washburn's side during this scene, we see his butt sticking out the window, but Washburn never moved.

Quotes:

Washburn: [after stopping in the alley during first car chase] Hey! Why'd you stop for?
Belle: [referring to the gun] Hey man watch that thing! It's a dead end, they ain't going nowhere.
Washburn: [loads his gun] Okay! Time to get my burn on!
Belle: You talking to me or your gun? You better not be talking to me. I *know* you ain't talking to me.

Movie Connections:

References Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994)

Soundtrack:

The Way It Was

Weak remake of 3 classics

This is the American version of the French Taxi films and it suffers in comparison.

I'm not kidding when I say that this a remake of the three French films since although the film is mainly a poor remake of the the first film, it lifts sequences from the second and third films.

Its a mess, a real mess. I'm a huge huge fan of the French films, and for me there was no real point in my seeing this since anything that worked came from the originals.

Why did they bother? They changed the sex of the lead (though the Queen is excellent), combined others and rewrote the cops mother to the point of stupidness. They lost any sense of timing and connection...they should have started from the ground up.

Its not the painfully awful film that some reviews made it out to be, but it is a waste of time. If you can find the originals and watch those. That should take you the better part of 5 hours and in the end you will not feel as though you've wasted your life.

3 out of 10.