Taxi (2004/I)

Director:

Tim Story

Writers (WGA):

Luc Besson (earlier screenplay)
Robert Ben Garant (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

8 October 2004 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Comedy | Crime | Thriller

Tagline:

Take a Ride on the Wild Side.

Plot:

A mouthy and feisty taxicab driver has hot tips for a green and inept cop set on solving a string of New York City bank robberies committed by a quartet of female Brazilian bank robbers.

Plot Keywords:

Brazilian | Driving | Taxicab | Undercover | Bank Robbery

Awards:

1 win & 5 nominations

Cast

Queen Latifah	...	Isabelle 'Belle' Williams
Jimmy Fallon	...	Andrew 'Andy' Washburn
Henry Simmons	...	Jesse
Jennifer Esposito	...	Lt. Marta Robbins
Gisele Bündchen	...	Vanessa
Ana Cristina de Oliveira	...	Redhead
Ingrid Vandebosch	...	Third Robber
Magali Amadei	...	Fourth Robber
Ann-Margret	...	Washburn's Mom
Christian Kane	...	Agent Mullins
Boris McGiver	...	Franklin
Adrian Martinez	...	Brasilian Man
Joe Lisi	...	Mr. Scalia
Bryna Weiss	...	Mrs. Scalia
GQ	...	Stopwatch Messenger

Also Known As:

New York Taxi (France)
Taxi 2004 (UK) (promotional title)

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for language, sensuality and brief violence.

Runtime:

97 min | USA:104 min (extended version)

Country:

USA | France

Language:

English | Portuguese | Spanish

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby Digital

Certification:

Norway:7 | Canada:PG (Ontario) | Iceland:10 (original rating) | Iceland:12 (video rating) | Argentina:13 | Australia:M | Brazil:12 | Finland:K-11 | Germany:6 | Netherlands:MG6 | Philippines:PG-13 | Singapore:PG | UK:12A | USA:PG-13 | Ireland:12PG | Ireland:15 (DVD rating) | South Korea:12

Filming Locations:

23rd St. & Madison Avenue, Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA

Company:

Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

Trivia:

Based on _Taxi (1998)_ a French film written by Luc Besson in 30 days while waiting for Columbia Pictures to commit to the production go-ahead for The Fifth Element (1997).

Goofs:

Continuity: When Washburn races to get Belle to the hospital Marta is at first sitting behind the driver's seat. However, in the next shot she is seated behind the passenger's seat and Belle is seated behind the driver.

Quotes:

Lt. Marta Robbins: On the floor, now!
Vanessa: In this skirt? I don't think so.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Saturday Night Live: Cameron Diaz/Green Day (#30.16)" (2005)

Soundtrack:

Heartburn

Weak remake of 3 classics

This is the American version of the French Taxi films and it suffers in comparison.

I'm not kidding when I say that this a remake of the three French films since although the film is mainly a poor remake of the the first film, it lifts sequences from the second and third films.

Its a mess, a real mess. I'm a huge huge fan of the French films, and for me there was no real point in my seeing this since anything that worked came from the originals.

Why did they bother? They changed the sex of the lead (though the Queen is excellent), combined others and rewrote the cops mother to the point of stupidness. They lost any sense of timing and connection...they should have started from the ground up.

Its not the painfully awful film that some reviews made it out to be, but it is a waste of time. If you can find the originals and watch those. That should take you the better part of 5 hours and in the end you will not feel as though you've wasted your life.

3 out of 10.