'STARSKY & HUTCH' EXCEEDS LOW EXPECTATIONS.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

ALTHOUGH they've worked together in half a dozen movies, Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson have never shared as much time on screen as they do in ``Starsky & Hutch.''

The pair don't wear out their welcome in this comic take on the '70s signature TV cop show. That must mean that they've really got their act together.

It could also mean that director Todd Phillips and a passel of screenwriters figured out the perfect comic tone for the picture and maintained it throughout the production.

I don't want to oversell the deal here; ``S&H'' is at best consistently amusing. Compared to most cheesy TV knockoffs of this vintage, that's a huge success. Or are you one of the five people that ``Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle'' actually entertained?

``S&H'' also proves that these characters bring out the comic best in each other, especially in the wake of Stiller's strained ``Along Came Polly'' and Wilson's disastrous ``The Big Bounce.''

Their characters have been broadened from the original Paul Michael Glaser and David Soul incarnations. Starsky is more humorlessly obsessive, hair-trigger violent and sensitive about his late mother's reputation as a better cop; Hutch has actual criminal tendencies to complement his laid-back approach to law enforcement. Their spiked camaraderie has a surprisingly natural feel to it.

That's something that could not be said of Phillips' previous contrived comedies, ``Road Trip'' and ``Old School.'' While paying due homage to the TV show's squawky music cues and zoomy camera work, the director re-created the 1970s as realistically as he could. The style atrocities of the era made enough fun of themselves that they didn't need extra caricature. Somehow, this makes the actual jokes funnier.

The scenario, for what little it matters, is basically an origin story. As the two biggest screw-ups on the Bay City police force, David Starsky and Ken Hutchinson are ordered to team up and track down the importer of a new, undetectable kind of cocaine. We know from the start that the culprit is businessman Reese Feldman (Vince Vaughn). S&H keep embarrassing themselves and the department with failed efforts to get the goods on Feldman, crashing his daughter's bat mitzvah among them.

The plot is just there to provide excuses for the boys to bicker, break up and reconcile. Phillips has called the film a romantic comedy between two straight guys.

There are lots of shots of Starsky's iconic, red-and-white Gran Torino burning rubber, as well as movie-stealing turns from an uncredited Will Ferrell and a dressed-to-the-11s Snoop Dogg. He fulfills his life's destiny by reprising the role of funky informant Huggy Bear.

``Starsky & Hutch,'' the movie, has no weight or purpose. But it takes its triviality seriously enough to make it feel fresh. That's as good an excuse for its existence as any.

Bob Strauss, [phone]

bob.strauss(at)dailynews.com

STARSKY & HUTCH - Three stars

(PG-13: violence, drug use, language)

Starring: Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, Vince Vaughn, Snoop Dogg, Juliette Lewis, Amy Smart, Carmen Electra, Will Ferrell.

Director: Todd Phillips.

Running time: 1 hr. 41 min.

Playing: Citywide.

In a nutshell: Relatively subtle satire of the '70s cop buddy show doesn't try too hard and, maybe because of that, is pleasingly funny throughout.

CAPTION(S):

photo

Photo:

Snoop Dogg is the link to the street for the detectives played by Ben Stiller, center, and Owen Wilson in ``Starsky & Hutch.''