Cop Out review

And for Kevin Smith's first non-written, only directed film, he attempts to recreate the buddy cop films we got in the 80's. In fact that's one of the running jokes in the film is that all the scored music sounds like it was rejected from "Beverly Hills Cop". What's worse however is just that almost nothing in the film is funny. I'd say about 8% of the jokes work... possibly a few more, but not much. The question is why. I'm no grand lover of Kevin Smith, but I did love his last two films "Clerks II" and "Zack and Miri Make A Porno" and think that both are among his very best both in writing and in directing. Of his prior work I only like "Clerks" (along with half the world) and "Chasing Amy". I loathe "Dogma", can't take "Mallrats", "Jersey Girl" or "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back".

My biggest beef with those films is just that not only are they not that funny, but they're filled with self-indulgent characters that always think they're better than everyone else or owed something for nothing. "Cop Out" doesn't manage to annoy, just bore the shit out of me. Bruce Willis does manage to get a couple of decent laughs here and there and as much as I love Tracy Morgan for his semi-retarded roles on "Saturday Night Live" and "30 Rock", here only a few things work and the rest is just him jumping around yelling and doing really overly dumb things throughout the movie. Worst yet something could have been saved if there was some better work done on the few action scenes. Instead it's all played pretty dry and dulled... like the jokes.

The chemistry is oddly enough there for the most part, it's just everything these guys do is lame as hell. The plot is somewhat convoluted and jumbled up with them trying to get back a stolen baseball card, a stolen car, keep a drug lord's mistress safe and pay for Willis' daughter's wedding while Morgan thinks his wife is cheating on him... OH and Sean William Scott as an over the top idiot thief with the maturity of a 4th grader. In fact... just about everyone has that level of maturity in "Cop Out" and it gets older my the joke.

I'm hoping this was simply a small bump for Smith's new found directorial talent and not something where we'll get three shitty films from the guy. Smith is a smart and funny person as we all know from twitter and his concert videos, so really why did he think this was going to work? Damn... you know I'm sorry to anyone reading this, because it's less a review and more of just me being really confused on how he could think this film works in any way shape or form. To be brutally honest, it was one more shitty joke away from becoming as lame as "The Whole Ten Yards"... that's right... the last horrid excuse for a Bruce Willis comedy.