Part “Waiting for Guffman”, part “Stand & Deliver”, part “Rushmore”, “Hamlet 2″ gives Steve Coogan a lot of room to run free; a very good thing if you like his brand of humor.

Coogan plays failed actor Dana Marschz. (Yes, his last name is meant to be unpronounceable.) He lives in Tuscon, Arizona, a place writers Pam Brady and Andrew Fleming hint is where “dreams go to die”. Marschz is in charge of Drama at a high school and has a whopping two students. His plays are lame, reproductions of Hollywood fare and he gets deservedly reamed (or “raped in the face” as Marschz puts it) by the school paper drama critic, played well by sharp newcomer Shea Pepe.

Asbestos in the portable classrooms and the axing of almost all electives suddenly gives Marschz a room full of indifferent students. At the same time, the school principal gives Marschz a pink slip, telling him the money is just not there for Drama. Standing in front of a wall of sports trophies, the principal pronounces that all the arts are “on the chopping block”. If you, however, think this movie has an undercurrent serious agenda, you’re in for a disappointment.

At the urging of the school paper drama critic, who Marschz sees as some sort of a mentor/father figure, Marschz decides to create his own play; a play which will serve to save the school’s Drama department. “Hamlet 2” is born. Marschz uses the play to work out his issues with his father and to rip off a number of famous songs. Marschz, as your stereotypical dramatist, is quite the eccentric and his inspired opus’ themes touch a nerve in Tuscon. The principal tries to cancel the show, Christians are offended by his portrayal of Jesus Christ, most people with decent taste are outraged, threats are received; all this without anyone actually having seen the play.

The grand finale is, of course, the play itself, and though it begins somewhat clunkily, it does manage to find some sort of salvation towards its end. It’s so over the top with elaborate staging, wired action sequences, and a number of very adult themes, that the audience (both of them) are manipulated into a state of bewildered amazement.

“Hamlet 2″ does have a number of laughs, almost all of which are thanks to Coogan. Personally, I think he is excellent. Much to his credit, he rivals Christopher Guest’s “Corky St. Clair” of “Waiting for Guffman” fame. Coogan, thankfully, has the humility and ability to riff off of teenagers, cats, inanimate objects, you name it. He is the film’s saving grace because most of the side players are poorly written, poorly acted, or both. We know Catherine Keener can act, but she’s not doing much of it here. David Arquette, on the other hand, even fails at a bit part playing a dumbass. Amy Poehler is wasted, forced to recycle the same joke over and over again. One bright spot is Melanie Diaz, who was good in “Be Kind Rewind” and continues to show a level of depth which rises above the superficial pithy mostly seen here.

This movie has practically every living comedian in it — David Cross, Cheryl Hines, Chris Parnell, Michael McKean, Ray Romano, Jason Alexander, Hank Azaria, Estelle Harris, Richard Kind, and the list goes on. If you were combine all the jokes possible from all these funny people, you would have a very funny movie. And yet, this movie is very moderately funny.

Its main man is One Eyed Jack Faro (Woody Harrelson), kind of a Keith Richards of the casino world. His excessive lifestyle has lost him the casino he inherited from his dad. The Grand poker tournament is his chance to win it back.

Not being a poker player myself, I can’t vouch for the quality of the poker games on hand, but I have a strong hunch that this is no Rounders. The tournament does give the movie momentum, but there’s just too many shabby ideas thrown in to really add up to a good film. The Grand also heavily borrows from movies like Best in Show and Blades of Glory. As in Best in Show, it has its atypical tournament finalist Andy Andrews (Richard Kind) and it copies its over-the-top superbowl character introductions from Blades of Glory. In fact, much of this film feels like a commercial, or a bad parody of poker TV. Perhaps it’s tartgeting folks with extremely low attention spans, because just as things start to get slow, BAMN, the next loud song or flashy segue.

Woody Harrelson and Cheryl Hines are quite good, but others such as Ray Romano or Michael McKean just drone on and it gets very old, very fast. I do like a lot of the movies that The Grand copies from, but I can’t say I like The Grand.

Street Kings is advertised as being directed by the writer of Training Day, which in my opinion, doesn’t say a whole lot. The ability to write a good film does not automatically make you a good director. Furthermore, Street Kings is not even written by David Ayer, the writer of Training Day, just directed by him. To be fair, Ayer does have one film, Harsh Times, under his belt as director.

Street Kings does have a a few big guns in its pack. Hot off his heels as an Academy Award winner, Forest Whitacker plays police captain Jack Wander. Wander is totally loyal to troubled detective, Tom Ludlow, played by a moping Keanu Reeves. Ludlow has a bad habit of drinking a few minibar bottles of Smirnoff and then heading into a house full of Korean gangsters without backup. Through his huffing and overly serious behavior, we realized that Reeves’ character is bothered by something. To quote Reeves’ most famous film dialogue, “Whoa”.

Ludlow’s gotten into a bit of trouble for his awful police work, and rightfully so, though we’re supposed to understand him and sympathize. Reeves does his darndest to with every acting bone and muscle in his body to show us that he’s battling inner demons. In capable hands, this could have been a character I really liked. Reeves, however, can’t do much more than avoid eye contact. This might have worked in other films, where other actors could have picked up the slack, but in a movie boasting a number of rappers/actors, Jay Mohr with a stupid mustache, and Whitacker who sounds like he’s foaming at the mouth the whole time, it just doesn’t cut it.

And yet, I keep getting away from the storyline. The fact is, there is not much of a story here. Reeves’ Ludlow mopes around, gets in a few gun battles, shows us he’s an unorthodox police officer. A fellow officer who he apparently used to be friends with, gets mowed down. Ludlow happens to be there, wants to get revenge. He then gets in over his head in some really bad stuff. All in all, really bland material. The interesting thing about Training Day was watching notorious good guy Denzel Washington play against the grain. In Street Kings we have notorious troubled inner demons guy Keanu Reeves doing the same thing he always does. Sure, he’s playing an insane detective who is the kind of guy who probably would have fit right in with the Stasi, but because he’s doing the Keanu vibe the whole time, we barely notice it.

One final word about the whole actor/rapper phenomenon. What’s the deal? 8 mile, where Eminem played a version of his rapper persona, was a load of crap, and I really like Eminem. Ludicrous in Crash was decent, but other than for box office returns, I can’t really see why they couldn’t have picked a capable actor. In Street Kings you’ve got Common and The Game both playing L.A. crime figures, in other words, not too far from their rapper personas. I though Method Man was pretty awful in American Gangster, but at least he was playing a straight cop. This is a trend that has just got to stop. I wonder if I’m the only one annoyed by gangster rappers playing their gangster rapper characters in movies. (In other words, not themselves, but copies of what they copy in real life. I’m getting a headache just thinking about it.)

I really do enjoy a good action flick once in a while and I’m also totally cool with the whole Dirty Harry badass cop thing, but this movie really gets nothing right. If this thing had been a TV pilot, I doubt it would have ever passed the first round. Skip it.