'CHiPs' TV fans poised to hate movie

LOS ANGELES

Hardcore “CHiPs” fans hate it and the real California Highway Patrol seems not quite sure what to make of it.

But Larry Wilcox, who rode his motorcycle to everlasting fame in the old “CHiPs” TV series, says that for now, he’ll give the benefit of the doubt to “CHIPS,” the forthcoming film based loosely - very loosely - on the show that made him and Erik Estrada two of the biggest stars of the 1970s and early ‘80s.

“I have not seen the film but the trailers looked like a soft-porn version of ‘Dumb and Dumber,’” Wilcox said recently. “However, I hear the actors are both very talented and funny, so maybe it all works.”

Fans of the original “CHiPs,” still widely seen in reruns and on DVD, are far less forgiving. They’ve been posting angry messages all over the internet since the first trailers for the R-rated action comedy emerged, calling it garbage and disrespectful to police officers everywhere.

In a lengthy “open letter” to Dax Shepard, Sue Walsh of New York accuses the film’s writer, director and co-star of mocking the original show with a ridiculous remake filled with nudity, penis jokes and raunchy bathroom humor. (She left out big-breasted women but they’re in there, too.)

“‘CHiPs’ was not just a ‘70s cop show. It wasn’t Shakespeare, no, but it did and does mean a whole lot to a whole lot of people,” said Walsh, who is organizing a 40th anniversary reunion of the show this fall that most of the original cast is expected to attend.

To understand why fans are so upset, one must remember what a gentle, family-oriented show “CHiPs” was.

CHP Sgt. Jon Baker (played by Wilcox) and his partner, Estrada’s Officer Frank “Ponch’ Poncherello, were hunky young straight-arrow cops cruising sun-splashed, surprisingly uncrowded LA freeways on their motorcycles when not cracking jokes or flirting harmlessly with cute female sheriff’s deputies.

To the thump of a persistent disco track, Baker and Ponch kept busy rescuing people from cars, occasionally solving folks’ personal problems and frequently chasing down miscreants before carting them off to jail without ever drawing their weapons.

“I know that there are people that grew up watching ‘CHiPs’ and that was part of the reason they decided to join the department,” said CHP spokeswoman Fran Clader. “I watched it when I was growing up.”

In the film version, however, Shepard and Michael Peña’s Baker and Ponch are anything but straight arrows. They accidentally destroy vehicles, cause fiery crashes, blow stuff up and sometimes shoot the wrong people.

“I understand it’s a broad comedy,” said Clader, adding she hasn’t seen the film and won’t offer an opinion on the trailer.

She said the CHP did grant the producers some technical assistance, for which the agency was reimbursed. But there’s also this disclaimer at the beginning of “CHIPS”: “This film is not endorsed by the California Highway Patrol. At all.” And sharp-eyed fans will notice the title punctuation of “CHIPS” was changed from the original “CHiPs,” further distancing the film from the department.

Estrada, who has a cameo, did not respond to multiple phone and email messages. But in a video clip from a recent premiere, he described it as “a movie you have to view with your adult sense of humor.”

As for Wilcox, he says he’ll probably see it - eventually.

“I think I will wait for the video,” he added.

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BC-MOVIE-CHIPS:ND - entertainment (1250 words),1312

Dax Shepard defends offbeat ‘CHiPs’ remake against criticism

(EDITORS: This story may not be used on websites) (SIDEBAR at bottom) (PHOTO)

By John Anderson

Newsday

Certain kinds of movies will attract hostile attention even before they open, particularly movies that concern controversial issues of religion, or politics, or revisionist history.

But “CHIPS”?

Dax Shepard’s revamp of the 1977-83 NBC police show, which opens Friday, March 24, got abuse from the get-go - from the show’s original co-star Larry Wilcox, from less-than-temperate fans on Twitter (“PURE TRASH!”) and from others who thought Shepard wasn’t going to pay proper respect to the memory of an immortal television drama.

They had no idea.

“To me it was a way to sneak one in under the radar,” said Shepard (“Parenthood”), “basically do a really offbeat movie, but do it under the umbrella of a global property so the studio would let me make it.”

In other words, the movie he made - an eccentric, extremely funny and certainly irreverent comedy- would never have been greenlit without the, uh, ruse of being a remake. “Especially for them to take a leap of faith and let me direct and write and be in it and all that,” he said. “They needed some air cover for sure.”

Shepard plays the perpetually discombobulated Jon Baker, a former motorcycle stunt driver who, after an infamous number of accidents and 23 surgeries, decides to enter the California Highway Patrol academy and become a uniformed motorcycle cop. Michael Pena (“Fury,” “The Martian,” “End of Watch”) plays an FBI agent who joins the CHP undercover, gets partnered with the unsuspecting Jon and is given the alias Francis Poncherello - or Ponch, the handle of Erik Estrada’s character in the original series.

Among the rumors going around was that Estrada, who has a cameo in the film, was upset with Shepard’s movie. “Yeah, it’s not a spoiler anymore,” Shepard said, “but when we heard these stories we had to come out and say, ‘He’s not upset with the movie. He’s in the movie.’ “

The story involves Ponch infiltrating CHP to investigate a rogue operation led by the fearsome Vic Brown (Vincent d’Onofrio) and a contingent of fellow criminal officers. The efforts of Jon and Ponch to crack the case follow some predictable tangents of ineptitude, slapstick and violence - the injuries suffered by some of the characters are surprisingly serious. (Ponch loses some fingers, for instance; another character loses a head.) Far less predictable are the personalities of Jon and Ponch and their very contemporary concerns about grooming, sex and, by the way, criminal investigations.

“I think the traditional archetypes of a buddy cop movie are one guy who’s straight-faced, and the other who’s a loose cannon,” Shepard said. “But I thought it would be more fun if the dynamic in this movie was more the male and female perspective.”

His character has emotional intelligence, he said; Pena’s character has logical intelligence. “So you’re more or less hearing a man and a woman fight for most of the movie,” Shepard said. “When they argue, they’re both making stellar points. They’re just arguing on two different planes.”

The actor-director, a longtime motor-sports enthusiast, is married to actress Kristen Bell, who plays Jon Baker’s soon-to-be ex-wife in the film; together they have two daughters and have campaigned against the practice of publishing photos of celebrities’ children. Knowing that ahead of time makes one scene in the film particularly tart, when a few camera people get creamed during a motorcycle chase. (“It’s paparazzi,” someone reports. “It’s fine.”) It’s pretty funny.

“I would agree,” Shepard said. “Let’s put it this way: When I was writing these set pieces I knew I only had $25 million dollars, so I wasn’t going to be doing ‘Fast and Furious’-level stuff. I thought, ‘There has to be a really good dose of comedy within all the action,’ so it gets into this rhythm: stunt, stunt, joke; stunt, stunt, joke.

“Then I started asking myself, ‘Well, who would it be fun to see get mowed over? You don’t want to feel bad for anyone.’ So I said, ‘Well, I can’t stand to see anyone with selfie sticks - that seems safe. And who would care if paparazzi got run over?’ And I just went through the list of people no one would care about getting hit.

“I think at the L.A. screening, they clapped when the paparazzi got run over.”

The inevitable question is whether Shepard and Co. are going to continue their motorcycle ride down Non-Remake Highway. “From your lips to God’s ears,” he said. “I would like nothing more than to make more of these. It was like a 45-day-long birthday party.”

Will Ponch have his fingers? “Well, he did have them in a bag in the ambulance,” Shepard said, referring to one scene in the film. “Believe me, I thought of that. I didn’t want to deal with prosthetics the whole sequel.”