Downtown (1990)    20th Century Fox/Action-Comedy    RT: 96 minutes    Rated R (language, strong violence, brief nudity)    Director: Richard Benjamin    Screenplay: Nat Mauldin    Music: Alan Silvestri    Cinematography: Richard H. Kline    Release date: January 12, 1990 (US)    Cast: Anthony Edwards, Forest Whitaker, Penelope Ann Miller, Joe Pantoliano, David Clennon, Art Evans, Rick Aiello, Roger Aaron Brown, Ron Canada, Wanda De Jesus, Frank McCarthy, Kimberly Scott.

Rating: ***

 Generally speaking, I think that critics have been much too harsh on Downtown, an action-comedy starring Anthony Edwards (Revenge of the Nerds) and Forest Whitaker (Bird) as mismatched partners looking for a cop killer. Okay, so it’s not Lethal Weapon and the team of Edwards and Whitaker isn’t as dynamic as Mel Gibson and Danny Glover. So what? Who says that you can’t just sit back and enjoy an inconsequential action-comedy that doesn’t break any new ground in the genre?

 I have only one real complaint about Downtown. The action of the movie is set in Philadelphia and the surrounding suburbs of Lower Merion. Aside from a few exterior shots, it was actually filmed in California. How do I know this? I’m a lifelong resident of the Philadelphia region and I’ve never seen any of the locations in the movie. I don’t understand why the filmmakers didn’t shoot the movie here. Did they save money by filming in sunny California? Don’t they usually film these things in Toronto?

 Directed by Richard Benjamin (My Favorite Year), Downtown is a pretty good albeit unremarkable movie. It has a fairly standard premise and plot. Alex Kearney (Edwards) is a Bryn Mawr cop who finds himself in hot water after an ugly incident with Jerome Sweet (Clennon, The Thing), a wealthy business tycoon with powerful connections. The eager young cop makes the mistake of trying to give him a speeding ticket. It results in Kearney being immediately transferred to the toughest precinct in the downtown Philadelphia area, the Diamond Street district.

 Upon arriving at the precinct, he finds himself in the middle of a gunfight between a few robbers attempting to escape from custody and the police officers. When the dust clears, he reports to Captain Henry Coleman (Evans, Die Hard 2) who takes one look at the pampered, white-bread suburban cop in front of him and says, “Every backward, candy-ass, s***-for-brains f***-up in the city, I get ’em!” Yes, the man does have a way with words. He assigns Dennis Curren (Whitaker), a tough street cop to show him the ropes. Curren is a loner and prefers to keep it that way. The last thing he wants to do is bond with some inexperienced white cop whose idea of good music is The Beach Boys. Nevertheless, they’re stuck with each other and there’s not too much they can do about it.

 After Kearney’s former partner (Aiello, Do the Right Thing) gets murdered inside the city limits, the inexperienced cop is determined to find out who’s responsible. Along with Curran, he discovers that the murder is connected to a luxury car theft ring. The killer is a psycho named White (Pantoliano, The Matrix). He works for some pretty major players. It’s only a matter of time until the partners uncover the principal figures in the ring and learn how high this criminal enterprise reaches.

 In the meantime, Kearney tries to assure his overprotective girlfriend Lori (Miller, Kindergarten Cop) that he’s not in any immediate danger with his new assignment (yeah, right!). He also persists in his efforts to befriend Curran. He manages to win over the bitter cop’s family at a birthday party for one of his children. He actually gives the boy a Beach Boys tape as a gift. The kids want to know if they’re anything like LL Cool J. Yep, it’s the old “culture clash/fish out of water” story arc.

 You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to predict where the story is going. Haven’t we seen this all before? Yes, but that doesn’t make Downtown any less enjoyable. It has its fair share of funny moments, like when Kearney gets his first taste of authentic soul food. When he learns what he’s been eating, his reaction is priceless. It leads to a scene where he uses it to handle a violent situation at the police station involving a delusional mental case holding a little girl at knife point. Another scene has Kearney getting assaulted by a Hispanic family who strip him completely naked and push him out onto the sidewalk. Here’s a tip, when your much more experienced partner tells you to wait in the car, DO IT!

 There are also a few decent action sequences in the movie and some surprisingly strong violence as well. Remember the wood chipper scene in Fargo? Uh huh, somebody here dies in one of those and it makes a terrible mess. And before you say that this type of violence is out of place in an action-comedy, let me point out that the Lethal Weapon flicks also feature moments of strong violence. I don’t hear anybody complaining about them. Benjamin throws in a bit of drama dealing with Curren’s real reason for not wanting to work with a partner. It’s not an easy fit, but it’s fine.

 Now for the $64,000 question. Do Edwards and Whitaker have any chemistry? To tell you the truth, their performances don’t seem forced but they don’t appear to be trying very hard either. It’s like they know Downtown is a goof and the audience’s expectations aren’t especially high. I guess you could say that there’s some chemistry between the two actors, but it doesn’t reach the magical level that Gibson and Glover occupy. What about the villains? Pantoliano does quite well as the cold-blooded killer and Clennon makes his character both arrogant and despicable.

 Speaking of low expectations, Downtown came out in January 1990. It was released the same weekend as Internal Affairs, Ski Patrol, Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III and the wide release of the excellent Civil War drama Glory. It was a three-day weekend (Martin Luther King Day) and I managed to see all of them. Rounding out the weekend with a matinee showing of Downtown, it was a rather successful three days. The audience also seemed to enjoy the movie. I actually saw it in a Philadelphia movie theater (the Sameric 4 on 19th & Chestnut). There was a fair amount of whispering about how none of the locations were familiar to the audience members.

 It really doesn’t matter, Downtown does what it sets out to do. It entertains the viewer with a pretty funny and reasonably action-packed story. Sure, the plot is right out of the Action-Comedy 101 textbook. It’s predictable and formulaic, but damned if it doesn’t work. However, I don’t think urban audiences will be purchasing any Beach Boys CDs any time soon.