Starsky and Hutch was, truly, a classic TV cop show of the 1970's. Whilst, at times, the series had a lot of the downside of TV cop shows of the time, it had the benefit of two amazingly charismatic actors who had a genuine chemistry on the screen. The producers of the show also had the willingness to take real directorial risks (in the first season Hutch is hooked onto heroine by the bad guy's - a show that was never even shown in the UK until decades later). Starsky and Hutch was arguably the best cop show by far of the 1970's.

Before watching this movie know this: The movie is a comedy/spoof of the show and is set prior to the show starting. The writers can therefore take some liberties with the characters, which, for fans of the original, may be a little hard to swallow at first - Starsky was THE coolest cop on TV in the 1970's, as far as this writer is concerned, and to see him as some sort of police geek with no sense of humour is a little hard to take at times. However the very well paced moments of comedy throughout compensate adequately.

The movie itself is little more than a collection of (some very funny) sketches under the umbrella plot situation that our heroes are looking for a cocaine trafficker who has managed to get his cocaine to have all the properties of an artificial sweetener and therefore is not traceable by existing detection methods.

There is some fine comedy in this movie, however the chemistry between Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson is never a patch on the Paul Michael Glaiser and David Soul originals.

The originals put in a very welcome cameo at the end of the movie when they give a red grand torino to our heroes who have destroyed their version of the car. Is there a chance that the originals will be back for some kind of movie now? Hope so.

The movie is also filled with classic middle of the road tracks from the 1970's from Barry Manilow, Eric Clapton and The Carpenters.