Slick, flashy film, a semi-remake of Luc Besson's "Taxi" from 1998, here Americanized as an urban action-comedy. Queen Latifah plays smart-mouthed cabbie with a souped-up vehicle in New York City who inadvertently partners with stumble bum cop Jimmy Fallon to crack a major crime case. Film should have relied more on Latifah's natural sass and less on Fallon's white-bread, dim-witted act (race is a constant punchline in the script, and Fallon is just there as Exhibit A). Jennifer Esposito is wonderful as a no-nonsense police lieutenant, Ann-Margret is a stitch as Fallon's tippling mother, and John Sierros (Broadway actor shamefully credited as 'Fat Cop') shines as a bamboozled police officer, but what happened to Queen Latifah? She gets a few good cracks in, but there's no character here for her to play; she sticks to her sarcastic persona and puts everyone down, but her role is depressingly one-dimensional. Comedy has a fast pace, impressive cinematography (although the swooping crane shots in traffic get repetitive) and some good car chases, but the screenplay needed an overhaul. ** from ****

A stupid detective that is not a good driver uses a terrific taxi driver, who dreams to be a pilot of racing car, to chase four bank robbers in a BMW. With this simple story line, "Taxi" is a very silly movie, but I laughed a lot. The greatest attraction for me was certainly the debut of the Brazilian top model Gisele Bündchen as "actress". But indeed Queen Latifah and Jimmy Fallon carry this dumb, ridiculous and absurd story in a very funny way. Another funny situation for the Brazilian viewers is to hear Ana Cristina de Oliveira speaking Portuguese with a strong accent from Portugal as if she were Brazilian. I laughed a lot with her pronunciation in Portuguese, which sounds very funny for us. I totally disagree with comments like "the worst movie ever made", probably made by persons without sense of humor as commented by another IMDb user. "Austin Powers" movies, just as an example, are dumber and less funny than "Taxi". If the viewer does not have much expectation about this film, he or she may probably have a good time. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Taxi"

I remember seeing bits and pieces of the original foreign language film of the same name, and I remember hearing about this remake from the appearance of the leading actor on The Secret Policeman's Ball 2006, next to EastEnders' Shaun Williamson saying how bad it was, so I had to see why, from director Tim Story (Barbershop, Fantastic Four). Basically Isabelle 'Belle' Williams (Queen Latifah) has recently left her old job to become a New York taxi driver, but being a speed demon she has cab modified to have turbo engine, but her real dream is to be a champion race car driver. This is derailed however by the appearance of overeager undercover cop Andrew 'Andy' Washburn (Jimmy Fallon) who has a knack for causing chaos and has no driving skills, despite getting a licence. He is chasing a trio of beautiful female bank robbers, led by Vanessa (Gisele Bündchen),and Belle ends up being the only witness in the case and the only accomplice to solve the crime. So begins a game of cat and mouse with the two most unlikely partners chasing the robbers, and only causing mishaps all over the place, and of course making Lt. Marta Robbins (Jennifer Esposito) more mad. After the lieutenant says enough is enough, and takes Andy's melted (by Belle's hubby) off him, he and Belle do reconcile, and she teaches him to drive a little bit, and in the end they of course get the bad girls and everything settles. Also starring Ann-Margret as Mrs. Washburn, Henry Simmons as Jesse, Christian Kane as Agent Mullins and Ana Cristina De Oliveira as Redhead. Latifah's ghetto girl one liners are wasted, Fallon is a complete waste of space, the chase sequence don't make any difference to how bad it is, I remember giggling once, but only once, the story has absolutely no laugh out loud moments, a stupid action comedy. Pretty poor!