Kuffs

Christian Slater is terribly tiresome and charmless as the outrageously cheeky George Kuffs, who is a lazy and irresponsible kid until a tragic event occurs. George's brother Brad is a well-liked policeman with his own district in San Francisco. One day Brad is shot on duty and subsequently dies. George inherits the district from Brad, who owned it, and he refuses to sell. George starts at police academy while trying to find out who was behind Brad's murder and how he can take revenge on the guilty. George's popularity in the area and among his employees is limited because of his inexperience and devil-may-care attitude, but naturally he succeeds in exposing Brad's murderers as large-scale art thieves.

George Kuffs thus develops into a responsible citizen and father. Milla Jovovich has a dull role as George's girlfriend Maya, whom he leaves for a while when she becomes pregnant.

"Kuffs" is funny, but also a little distasteful in the way it jumps from one genre, or mood if you like, to another. Brad has barely died, which the film portrays as a very sad event, before George is firing off cocky jokes again.

The film makes use of the rare narrative device of George addressing the camera. The last time I saw that was in "Richard III", but there the technique worked better and more meaningfully.