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 95 MINUTES | BOSTON COMMON + FENWAY + FRESH POND + CIRCLE + SUBURBS

In this ersatz cop comedy derivative of Eddie Murphy’s 48 HRS and Beverly Hills Cop, Nick Cannon (Drumline) plays Tracy Stokes, an LAPD screw-up who’s given his shot at making detective when he goes undercover at a prep school to solve a murder. Naturally he screws up, but Tracy gets chance after chance from his impolitic captain (Cheech Marin, whose career seems to have gone up in smoke), and the film wears on like an endless battle with a Hydra. And though Cannon can be funny (any time you drop a hip-hop African-American into a lily-white institution, you’re guaranteed a few laughs), neither he nor director Marcos Siega can decide how to play it. At times Tracy’s a sensitive guy who just needs a hug; at others, he’s an obnoxious motormouth, more grating than Chris Tucker. Fortunately, Johnny Lewis (who also stars in Siega’s other current movie, Pretty Persuasion) is on hand as a preppie into street cred. His stilted rap-speak is humorous and endearing, and, best of all, it makes Tracy cringe.