R | 1h 40m |Action, Comedy, Crime | March 23, 2017

Dax Shepard is a Hollywood “triple-threat” actor, that is, an actor who acts, writes, and directs (the New York triple-threat version acts, sings, and dances in Broadway musicals). Shepard also races and stunt rides top-end Ducati motorcycles. So who better to make a movie version of the 1970’s motorcycle cop TV show “CHiPS?”

Is “CHIPS” any good? It’s pretty funny. It also contains much grossness, but then, so does every R-rated comedy these days. The fact is, comedy and bawdiness have gone hand in hand since the ancient Greeks—not justifying it, just saying.

“CHIPS” will do nothing for your moral standard, but if you like the thought of A-lister Michael Peña doing a clown version of his work in the superb crime drama “End of Watch,” if you enjoy buddy-cop banter, or if you love motorcycles, or all of the above, you’ll likely laugh yourself silly.

However, the demographic most likely to love “CHIPS” wholeheartedly is probably 20-something, baseball-cap backwards-wearing, “bro” and “dude”-constantly-saying young men who own their own pool cues and “rent” a lot of beer, in college. It didn’t do that well on Rotten tomatoes with either the critics or the audiences but my guess is “CHIPS” has become a perennial mega-hit with the frat-house and sorority set.

Nice guy Jonathan Andrew Baker (Shepard) and smart-mouth Francis Llewellyn Poncherello (Peña) play newly minted California Highway Patrol (CHP) motorcycle cops.

Baker’s a washed-up former pro-motocross biker, still sporting a ripped, 42-going-on-19 athlete’s bod,

and hoping to re-spark his foundering marriage to Karen (played by Shepard’s real-life wife, Kristen Bell, a Hollywood A-list comedienne in her own right).

Poncherello (not his real name) is working undercover for the FBI. He’s got a penchant for shooting bullets through his partners’ bodies to hit the bad guys standing behind them. Ponch is tracking a CHP insider, dirty-cop scam. And so, in terms of a plot, um … that’s it.

Peña has become one of the most bankable actors working today. He can slam-dunk both comedy and drama equally well, and when in comedic mode, he’ll steal scenes from most funny actors. So it was a real surprise to see Shepard stealing most of the scenes here. Now, Shepard wrote the movie, directed it, and stars in it, so it would be slightly sad if a man with that much movie mojo couldn’t steal his own movie. Still, it’s no easy feat to pull off, going up against Peña.

Ahem—”going up against Peña,” er, physically, is the source of a giant portion of the frat-boy humor here. Dedicated to one of the favorite sources of hetero-male humor enjoyed by contact sports teams and military platoons everywhere, it’s the having of flailing, panicked hysterics due to naked bodies inadvertently, inappropriately coming in contact.

There’s one particular instance of this that’s guaranteed to have the boys of Phi Delta Phi and girls of Delta Phi Delta spraying beer through their noses. I nearly sprayed my movie coke. Needless to say, this deeply ingrained “hetero- fear trigger” will not go over well in today’s politically correct world.

The other source of hilarity is the personality clash between Jon’s touchy-feely, self-help-y, TMI approach to life, and Ponch’s hyper-macho, deflect-y denial.

It’s a predictable Felix-Oscar-type pairing, but Shepard/Jon does a very fun job of examining Peña/Ponch’s various furtive, dysfunctional behaviors. And exposing them. He does so in that classic, bloodhound-sniffing, shaming, mommy way, wherein moms suddenly dig Junior’s bare-naked lady photos out his sock drawer, and say, What’s this??? (to Ponch’s immense chagrin). This is highly pleasing.

One note of annoying wrongness is the pain killer-dependent Jon (look at all the biker scars right there!) constantly, excruciatingly banging and falling on his bad knee, only to gracefully mount over obstacles like Santa’s reindeer a minute later.

The chase scenes aren’t nearly as good as what Tom Cruise pulls off in the “Mission Impossible” series, but even if you’re a biker with a die-hard Harley-Davidson fetish, you may find yourself strangely itching to try out one of those monstrously speed-demon-y, 110-horsepower Ducati Hypermotard bikes. Which is more effective frat-boy marketing.

Hmm? Ah yes, “quality.” For those concerned about this main thesis of “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance,” it helps to remember this is a sophomoric movie about motorcycle cops. And so the you-knew-it-was-coming Erik Estrada cameo (star of the original TV series) falls flat, the tone is inconsistent, the plot moronic, and the boy banter definitely dirty. Even so, you don’t end up feeling as slime-balled as you would by cynically manufactured studio comedies: This is the Dax show, and Dax is a decidedly likable dude. Check him out, driving in his RV, belting out songs with his daughter:

In 2017, it looked as if “CHIPS” would be Shepards’s big, er, chip in the game, that he’d quickly move to a higher visibility of Hollywood player status and be given carte blanche to make more money with movies. But the critics were scathing, the moviegoers as well, but it’s a sure bet that on any given college campus, on any given Friday night, the phrase, “Dude! ‘CHIPS,’ chips, and beer-pong in the quad tonight!” will ring out.

Rated R for crude sexual content, graphic nudity, pervasive language, some violence, and drug use.

‘CHIPS’ Director: Dax Shepard Starring: Dax Shepard, Michael Peña, Vincent D’Onofrio, Kristen Bell Running Time: 1 hour, 40 minutes MPAA Rating: R Release Date: March 24, 2017 Rated 3 stars out of 5