The Robert De Niro/Eddie Murphy "buddy movie" spoof Showtime seems to have amused critics more than they are willing to let on. For example, Geoff Pevere in the Toronto Star remarks about one scene in which William Shatner, playing himself as an acting coach, turns to Rene Russo, playing a TV producer, and says of Robert De Niro, playing a TV cop in a reality show: "This. Guy. Is. The. Worst. Actor. I have. Ever. Seen." Comments Pevere: "Any Robert De Niro movie that gets its finest moments from William Shatner is just fundamentally whacked." Referring to the same scene, Gary Thompson in the Philadelphia Daily News writes: "The line works as long as we continue to believe De Niro is a great actor, a status he might lose unless he starts choosing scripts more carefully." Says Jonathan Foreman in the New York Post: "It's a wretchedly dumb, lazy and incoherent movie that's magically rendered watchable by Eddie Murphy's charm and Robert De Niro's presence." And Joe Morgenstern in the Wall Street Journal, although remarking that the movie often "rambles and occasionally stumbles," comments: "I've got to cop to my own enjoyment: I laughed a lot and had a really good time. What the movie lacks in coherence it makes up for in zest, well-founded self-delight and a sharpshooter's eye for the absurdities of reality TV." And Kevin Thomas in the Los Angeles Times gives the film high praise: "From frame one Showtime displays an ingenuity, cleverness and briskness that never flags," he writes.