Centered in the downtown and out skirts of Detroit, this comedy I found to be a terrific new comedic duo. 'Noriyuki Pat Morita' is a very funny man, who happens to be a cop from Japan on the trail of an industrial secrets thief, who has stolen a 'proto type' turbo super charger, reluctantly he goes to the United States to follow the thief, after being ordered by his commander. Pat's character collides with 'Jay Leno's' character, a fast talking' but down to business-player type Detroit cop. When they cross paths though, the honorable 'Ways' of Japan meet the all-out old school Detroit police investigative 'Ways'. The two stumble and trip over each other at first, but then develop a 'rythym' that turns into an explosive two layered powerhouse team, that solves the case, cold. After battling a city crime boss for the stolen 'equiptment' and closing the case, these two go from despising each other to being friends and working well together. A little worse for wear and in need of an extended-vacation on top of it all, they manage to come to a victorious closing. I rated this a 9. Lewis's direction makes' this a near perfect comedy. Fun for all ages. I recommend it highly.(***)

This film reminded me of The Sopranos, and not in a good way.
David Chase's seminal mob opera only ever put its foot wrong twice, the most jarring and inexplicable instance of which took place in its fourth season, when Junior Soprano went on trial for his life. Rather than pursue this riveting (and pivotal) plot line, the writers instead chose to completely ignore it, focusing instead on Bobby Baccalieri's constant whimpering over his recently deceased wife's frozen pasta dish.
When something of genuine interest happens in Notorious - for example that first, mysterious assassination attempt on Tupac Shakur that ignited the whole East Coast/West Coast feud in the first place, and ended up leading to the deaths of both Tupac and Christopher Wallace - the film treats it as just another bit of plot to plod through. Why exactly was Tupac so convinced that he was sold out by his own people? Did he alone nurture his subsequent affiliation with Suge Knight? And was Lil' Kim's transformation from prim office drone into sex-obsessed, vampish diva really as banal as it appears here?
None of these questions are even fleetingly addressed by the film's screenwriters, who are far more interested in depicting Wallace's turbulent love life to zero compelling dramatic avail. These sequences (including a brain-frazzlingly clichéd groupie indescretion in a hotel room) are so toothless and bruisingly manipulative that the only real comparison to be made is with a network TV movie.
The storytelling, in both structure and content, is simplistic and trite. But more fundamentally, as a biopic; as something designed to celebrate its subject and educate the uninitiated on the intricacies of their life and work; the film is almost entirely worthless. The reliance on meat-and-potatoes genre plotting, coupled with the lifeless musical performances (an area in which a film like this should soar, surely) result in a film that appears to have been designed only to satisfy the whims and demands of those involved, leaving Wallace's questionable status as a giant in his field as the preserve of the easily persuaded and previously converted only.
And the final twenty minutes, in which Wallace's posthumous cultural identity is broadly painted as being akin to that of a latter day saint, quite frankly made me feel like throwing up.
On that score, much as with any other, Notorious is crass, calculating and compromised.