Oh, Kevin Smith. He was once working for the good guys – Dogma, Clerks – but he’s clearly fallen in with a bad crowd. Smith needs to be put on parole, and watched closely to ensure he doesn’t make another film like this. Cop Out is guilty of being clichéd, crass, and just plain crummy. It’s almost too easy to criticise.
Cop Out follows two long-term cop partners – Jimmy Monroe (Bruce Willis, you know, from Die Hard, a film they unsuccessfully try to spoof) and Paul Hodges (Tracy Morgan, SNL) – as they try to track down a stolen baseball card. In an attempt to make the audience sympathise with Jimmy, he needs to recapture this card, so that he can sell it and use the money to pay for his daughter’s wedding. Aww? Naw, not really. The perpetually stoned Dave (Seann William Scott, American Pie) is the card-grabbing criminal, but the real race begins when Jimmy and Paul are pulled down into the underground world of Mexican thugs. That’s pretty much all you need to know, though it’s probably best not to concentrate on the plot too much.
Cop Out wants to be a post-modern pastiche of old-school buddy action films, and attempts in the first scene to introduce a level of self-awareness, with Morgan mentioning the classics of the genre. But even the awareness is awful. Cop Out is a cop out, and doesn’t reinterpret archetypes of the genre; so much as it creates a shameless stereotype. It’s also usually expected that parodies be at least vaguely amusing, but unfortunately the jokes in this film promote nervous laughter more than any authentic mirth.
Willis is impossibly uncharismatic in his role, and Morgan shouts his way through the script. The failures of these two actors reflect the failures of the film more generally. The script swings from far too serious (that would be Bruce Willis, who only occasionally attempts to exercise his funny bone in this film – and even then probably breaks it) to annoyingly asinine (Tracy Morgan – did I mention the unfunny shouting already?). As a result of the film’s inconsistencies, the audience is never sure whether they should be genuinely worried for the character’s well-being during the action sequences, or write the whole film off as a farce.
In Kevin Smith’s defence, he didn’t write Cop Out – merely directed the film – but that kind of alibi isn’t going to hold up in court. Cop Out is criminally bad.
Cop Out is screening in Australia now
Director: Kevin Smith
Cast: Bruce Willis, Tracy Morgan, Seann William Scott
I thort cop-out was a mastapeice, ur jus jellous coz tracy morgens mad funny
Just kidding. It looks stupid. I thought/hoped crappy black guy meets white guy comedies were dead. Maybe this’ll be the last nail in the coffin? That would be awesome. In the meantime, I’ll save my money and spend it on something more useful. Like a talking, mounted plastic fish or some coathangers.