Starsky & Hutch

Can a Frat Pack comedy from the director of The Hangover really be one of the best films set in the seventies?

OK – gritty, auteur filmmaking about the golden age of porn or a San Francisco serial killer is cool and all, but have you tried Starsky & Hutch? A comedy reboot of a buddy cop television series isn’t necessarily what first comes to mind when you think of the best films set in the 1970s, but sometimes you find exactly what you have been looking for in the places you would least expect. Starsky & Hutch combines a cast of Frat Pack comedy stars with a tongue-in-cheek sensibility and perfect 70s soundtrack to capture the fun and flamboyance of the era, yet it seems to have faded in to obscurity; rarely mentioned in the same breath as the other classic comedies of the Frat Pack genre. Perhaps it was overshadowed by Anchorman, another 70s-set comedy released in the same year that shares a lot of the same cast members? Maybe it was trapped in some sort of film purgatory; too serious to be an all-time classic comedy, but too funny to be taken seriously? Maybe I’m in the minority, and it is just an average film that deserves its measly 6.1/10 on IMDb?  

Impossible.

The term Frat Pack was coined by USA Today in 2004 as a catch-all term for a specific brand of comedies from the early 2000s; a fraternity-themed play on the Rat Pack nickname given to Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, et al. It came to describe comedies featuring various casting combinations involving Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, Will Ferrell, and brothers Owen and Luke Wilson; films like Old School, Anchorman, Wedding Crashers, Dodgeball, and of course our good friend, Starsky & Hutch. This run of films naturally evolved in to the Judd Apatow era; his involvement as a producer on the likes of Anchorman paved the way for a passing of the torch, as the likes of Seth Rogen, Paul Rudd, and Steve Carrell – who all appeared in Frat Pack supporting roles – were thrust in to top billing of the Apatow-directed box-office hits that followed.

Starsky & Hutch puts a classic Frat Pack pairing front and centre. They battled it out as rival models in Zoolander; they battled it out as rival love interests in Meet the Parents; now they, um… battle it out as two cops with opposing personalities who are partnered together. Ben Stiller is David Starsky, a by-the-book detective who is serious about police work; happy to put in time on the typewriter when he isn’t out pursuing an investigation. Owen Wilson is Ken ‘Hutch’ Hutchinson, a laidback detective who blurs the lines between fighting and committing crime. So what if he runs a few personal errands during his police work? Is stealing from a local bookie really that bad?

The tone is set from the opening sequence; we see the contrasting styles of each detective’s approach to police work. Starsky pursues a perp in a rooftop chase, the subtle comedy immediately seeping through as Stiller narrates the incident; ‘that’s me in the leather jacket and tight jeans’. The cat and mouse act continues, jumping across the gaps above the alleyways separating the buildings, until they make their way down a fire escape and on to the street. We find out later from chief of police Captain Doby that the stolen purse Starsky was trying to retrieve contained seven dollars. A worthwhile cause to Starsky – crime is crime, even if it means firing your gun in a crowded area for the sake of a few dollars.

Hutch does things a little differently. Wilson’s narration establishes Hutch’s unique approach to police work; ‘if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em’. He’s travelling in a car with two associates and pulls on a balaclava, storming through a Chinese laundromat and into the back room where some old-timers are running a bookmaking syndicate. He cleans them out, stuffing the loose bank notes into a bag, and exits through the back door; not before throwing down a stack of notes and instructing the robbed bookie to ‘put that on Dallas’, a reference to Wilson’s home town. Hutch doesn’t see anything wrong with earning a bit of extra money on the side and tries to justify his bookie-robbing spree as an undercover investigation. The hard-nosed Captain Doby isn’t buying it; he reminds Hutch that he has ‘robbed seven bookies in the last six months’.

Todd Phillips’ decision to open the film with two sequences that illustrate each of Starsky and Hutch’s approaches to police work perfectly establishes the dynamic at the heart of the film. In the original 70s television series, the roles are reversed; Starsky is the laidback detective who bends the rules, and Hutch is the straight, sensible one. It’s understandable that the personalities have been flipped; Ben Stiller’s self-deprecating persona as the uptight Starsky is too good to miss out on. Their conflicting personalities are epitomised by their opening scene narration; Stiller’s Starsky tells us that ‘the city pays us a damn good salary’, whereas Hutch justifies his bookie-robbing as necessary because of ‘how little the city pays us’. The slick opening expertly positions each detective’s personality and their questionable policing techniques, which see them both hauled in to Doby’s office and told they are partners. You two deserve each other.

Now that Starsky and Hutch have their new partnership, they need a case to solve. Step up Vince Vaughn’s Jewish-American cocaine kingpin, Reece Feldman. Feldman has developed a batch of pure cocaine that is completely untraceable and unidentifiable by police. As he puts it, ‘if this shit wasn’t illegal, we’d be up for the Nobel Prize’. Backed by his mistress, Kitty (Juliette Lewis), and snooty assistant-slash-partner, Kevin (Jason Bateman), Feldman has started supplying his cocaine to the dealers in Bay City. An associate of Feldman’s washes up dead on the Bay City shore and, despite Hutch’s desire to push the floater downstream to the next police precinct, Starsky and Hutch are tasked with investigating the murder.

As Starsky and Hutch weave through the world of 70s Bay City, they encounter a broad spread of familiar faces. Snoop Dogg crops up as Huggy Bear, a local pimp and bar owner. Huggy keeps his ear to the street and passes on information to Hutch in return for an understanding that his illicit activities won’t attract any police attention. I’m not saying Snoop was born for this role as a breezy street hustler, but when the production team couldn’t source the specific model of Lincoln car in light blue that was to be used for Huggy’s character, Snoop just happened to own that exact model already, and used his own.

Will Ferrell and Chris Penn both appear as foil to Starsky and Hutch, while Carmen Electra and Amy Smart are cheerleaders who the detectives pursue as possible leads in their investigation. There’s even the chance for Todd Phillips to deliver his directorial trademark; The Dan Band, famously appearing as the profanity-laced wedding band in Old School and The Hangover, have been hired to soundtrack the bat mitzvah of Reece Feldman’s daughter. True to form, they inappropriately dedicate George Benson’s sultry hit ‘Feel Like Making Love’ to Feldman’s teenage daughter, just as a couple of mimes arrive to ruin the party.

The comedy of Starsky & Hutch comes from its tongue-in-cheek approach to its period setting; almost permanently winking to the audience, reminding us that this is a spoof. The film begins with a title card displaying ‘Bay City, The Seventies’. Specifying a specific year for the film would be too real; the catch-all ‘seventies’ in itself feels like a gag, leaving the door open for the anachronisms and parody that follow.

Starsky and Hutch travel to interview a promising lead in a remote biker bar, and opt to go in disguise; they just happen to be dressed in outfits identical to Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper’s characters in the classic counterculture road movie Easy Rider. That film is said to have ushered in the New Hollywood era of American New Wave cinema that dominated the 70s; the parody here is a nod to the cinema of the period we’re watching on screen. In Easy Rider, Fonda and Hopper complete a cocaine deal before travelling across America on motorcycles; Starsky & Hutch shows the other side of the same coin, as the detectives investigate a cocaine dealer. They even manage to secure the rights to The Band’s ‘The Weight’ to parody the iconic scene where Fonda and Hopper are cruising on the open road, soundtracked by the classic Americana song from Bob Dylan’s old backing band. Only this time, Stiller has to make sure his fake moustache remains stuck to his face.

Sometimes the winks to the period setting aren’t so subtle. During the dance-off scene at a Bay City night club (we’ll get to that), Patton Oswalt’s disco commentator notes that one of the moves on show is from another era; ‘from the future of 1984, that’s a funky disco robot!’. There are subtle winks, not-so-subtle winks, and then there is Carmen Electra. She’s so synonymous with the 90s that it’s almost impossible to accept her appearance in the seventies setting; it doesn’t compute. Starsky & Hutch is silly, it’s self-referential. Like the 70s themselves, it doesn’t take itself too seriously.

Speaking of the dance-off scene, it’s possibly one of the best film representations of the eccentric and ridiculous nightclub culture of the seventies. Starsky and Hutch have hosted Electra’s Stacy and Smart’s Holly, following up on the leads of their investigation of Feldman. After the police lab wrongly cleared a bag of cocaine that one of Feldman’s associates handed over, owing to its unidentifiable Nobel Prize ingenuity and declaring it as artificial sweetener, Starsky uses it for his coffee. Instead of a nice coffee caffeine boost, our by-the-book detective is rattling from the pure cocaine.

The four head to a nightclub, complete with a disco platform where clubbers dance in formation to Maxine Nightingale’s uplifting screamer ‘Right Back Where We Started From’. Starsky is understandably boisterous and bumps in to a sleazy, curly-haired disco dancer, played by joke-rocker Har Mar Superstar. He’s not impressed with Starsky’s apparent disrespect for dance-floor etiquette. ‘Watch it. The floor’s made for dancin’, you can tell by the lights’. Naturally, the only thing left to do is to have a one versus one dance-off, Starsky versus the aptly-named Dancin’ Rick. One, two, three, four; we’ve got disco war, folks.

The dance-off is hosted by Patton Oswalt, who appears to be the club’s MC. During the filming of this scene, Oswalt happily kept the extras and production crew entertained, rhyming off jokes and one-liners from the DJ booth in between takes. Things get off to a bad start for Starsky as Oswalt mistakes his name as David Stansky. Oswalt takes his place in the booth, ready to commentate on the battle of the titans that we are about to witness.

KC and the Sunshine Band’s iconic disco classic ‘That’s the Way (I Like It)’ soundtracks the showdown. Both men take turns throwing down their best moves, eventually ending face to face, toe to toe in the middle of the floor, matching each other’s movements blow for blow. As Oswalt calls it, disco Vietnam. Starsky steals the show with a knee-slide at the buzzer, but Dancin’ Rick is awarded the win. The crowd boos; Starsky is awash with injustice and demands a recount. We was robbed.

It’s a silly sequence yet it feels so authentic; Saturday Night Fever times a thousand with added cocaine and disco-fuelled testosterone. You can’t help think that this kind of thing actually took place in clubs across America, a representation of the flamboyant self-importance of the 70s.

So why isn’t Starsky & Hutch held in high regard? It’s a fun ride with a great period soundtrack; it’s got plenty of laughs and an engaging storyline. It’s not as if it doesn’t come with a decent pedigree; Todd Phillips’ comedies have made over $1 billion at the box-office, and the cast is packed with reliable comedians. Phillips’ even returned to a period setting with inspiration from another 70s classic, 1976’s Taxi Driver (and 1983’s King of Comedy), for his crowning achievement to date; a move to more dramatic material with 2019’s Joker, which personally earned him three Academy Award nominations, while the film topped the charts that year with 11 nominations in total.

All that’s left to do is to recommend a re-watch if you have seen it before, or encourage you seek it out and give it a go if you haven’t. Leave your preconceptions at the door and treat Starsky & Hutch with the respect it deserves; one of the best films to be set in the 70s. Do it.

Do it.