(1999) Changing the venue from New York City, where they'd made a three-hour black-&-white documentary, Water in the Apple: How New Yorkers Get Their Water, to Los Angeles, filmmakers AJ Edison (John Livingston) and Wilton Crawley (Mos Def) begin filming the Boone and Murphy private-investigators agency for something with a less predictable ending (water coming out of the tap).

"Not really a glamorous job," admits Joe Boone (Miguel Ferrer, resembling in voice and manner Detective Joe Friday from Dragnet): "The in and out … that's what my job's all about." Partner Kevin Murphy (John Slattery) thinks the movie's a bad idea. Meanwhile, their secretary Angela (Allison Dean) reminds them of the rent, phone, and utilities bills piling up.

Seeking information, Joe shows a pair of hookers photos of girls: "I'm looking for a runaway with acute stage three Mongrin's Syndrome. If she doesn't get her kidney dialysis by noon tomorrow, she'll be dead. Do you know her? Yes or no." One girl says: "Stacy." Aghast, the other exclaims: "Jesus." On the street Joe says to a different prostitute: "She calls herself Stacy … or Jesus." Turns out the man claiming to be Fawn's father is actually her sex-crazed 9th-grade English teacher.

While waiting for his Black Dahlia case, Joe deals with dog shit and missing cats (a cartoon character), until Sonny "Beep" Collins (Clayton Rohner) comes in with a request to confirm his wife's cheating on him. On a stakeout of the motel, Joe discovers that Murphy's involved with the woman in question. Confronted with the fact of his illicit liaison, Murphy quits ("We are morons") and flees to Mexico with Joe's help.

But wait … she's not Beep's wife. Director Daniel Pyne's farcically funny film, screenplay co-written with John Mankiewicz, poses as a documentary about detectives who are the documentarians posing as detectives. Frantic to salvage their investment in the project ("We can't control it"), the filmmakers volunteer to help Boone, alternating as his partner and camera jockey.

"Always look for the lie," Boone explains his method, informing Wilt that he's "a shade underdressed for a black man," while AJ claims his having a necktie gives him a leg up in legwork. Monica Collins (Elizabeth Schofield), Beep's wife, comes to Boone's office with her complaint about her husband's affair with his secretary Emma Huffington: "He's worried about the woman he's cheating on me with is cheating on him now." Hodeeho!

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Copyright © 2011 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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