Showtime [2002]

No-nonsense Detective Mitch Preston is a twenty-eight year veteran of the LAPD. He hates the way the police are portrayed in entertainment, he knowing that their work is much more mundane and not nearly as sensationalistic. But while he is undercover on a case, he is caught on film shooting and thus destroying a Maxxis Television station camera, the case that goes sideways because of that television intervention. Chase Renzi, a producer at Maxxis, sees in Mitch a goldmine, she who wants to produce a reality show around his day-to-day work. Mitch is forced to participate against his will as the station will sue the LAPD otherwise for that shooting incident and the destruction of the camera, and as that footage of Mitch leads to the PD wanting some good publicity in showing a human side of the department instead. Despite Chase's assertion that she wants to show reality, she truly wants to show a glamorized and her perceived version of reality, which goes against everything Mitch stands for. Chase also wants a sidekick for Mitch on the show, she choosing a beat cop named Trey Sellars, who was the direct reason for the television camera intervention at Mitch's undercover case. Trey is an aspiring and not very good actor, who campaigned hard for the job as Mitch's partner on the show, and whose sole goal is to get as much exposure for himself in playing to the camera. Through it all, Mitch and now Trey have to work on a case involving the source of a custom built assault weapon that was used in that undercover case by the criminals. This case will demonstrate if Trey has what it takes to become a real police detective, and whether the cameras will be a benefit or an obstacle in them doing their potentially dangerous police work, especially as Chase is always looking for that television-worthy shot.