I really want to start this off by saying that I'm a really big Kevin Smith fan. He hooked me with Clerks which I consider one of the straight up greatest comedies ever filmed. Kevin Smith has always done a great job of not necessarily catching realism but getting you inside a persons fantasies in a realistic setting. Another great aspect of Kevin's is his ability to pair characters to get the best out of them, but unfortunately this is a review of Cop Out. I say unfortunately because even though this is a Kevin Smith directed film it was obvious he had very little control of the product.
Cop Out is a way over the top homage to cop buddy films of the 80's and I do mean way over the top. We ended up with a pair of rogue cops fitting the cop buddy format. One white one black, one a crazy loose cannon one a little more straight laced. They get in trouble for shooting up the city and get suspended, don't give a shit about the suspension and solve crimes anyway. They even went as far as to recruit a criminal to help with their cause. And of course there is a pair of cop buddies that blame the original ones for ruining their hard done police work. I'm pretty sure that describes every cop buddy movie I've ever watched and you get it all here with a crazy over the top comedic twist.
The main characters of Cop Out are Paul Hodges (Tracy Morgan) and Jimmy Monroe (Bruce Willis). And there is no chemistry between the two. Bruce Willis seems arrogant and above the movie in his acting, you could really tell his heart wasn't in it even though this was a role that was perfect for him. He had a chance to mix Die Hard with Moonlighting. We have a chance to get the funny Bruce Willis to meld with the action one and he missed the mark completely. The on screen dialogue between Bruce and Tracy was very hard to watch as it seemed like Bruce spent more time looking at his watch than at his partner. The saddest part about his portrayal was that I've always considered myself a Bruce Willis fan. He's delivered great movies in his time, Pulp Fiction, Die Hard, Lucky Number Slevin, Tears of the Sun and Sixth Sense were great Bruce Willis serious/ action movies. I've even liked him in some of his crappy movies like The Fifth Element, Color of Night and The Jackal. The Whole Nine Yards and it's sequel The Whole Ten Yards prove that he can be a straight man to the goofy guy. So I have no idea what the hell happened here.
Tracy Morgan on the other hand was hysterical. He had great chemistry with pretty much every character in the film not named Bruce Willis. His scenes with Dave (Seann William Scott) were priceless, and Seann William Scott stole the movie. I laughed much harder than I probably should have at some of the things Dave was doing and saying. I also really enjoyed Kevin Pollack being well Kevin Pollack. He and Adam Brody played the other pair of cop buddies Hunsaker and Mangold. Guillermo Díaz also delivered a fun portrayal of the big tough bad guy.
I believe this is the one time you can't blame a director for a movie not doing so well. Kevin Smith excels when he is in control of the script and it just didn't feel like one of his movies. Bruce Willis on the other hand just really dropped the ball. Sometimes Bruce if your not feeling it walk away from the paycheck and don't take a giant dump on the careers of other people just cause your not into the movie.
As a whole I thought the movie had some laugh out loud moments and it was fun seeing a film genre from my youth again but I can't say I liked it. Seann William Scott may have saved it from being another horrible cast of SNL type movie where a former cast member stars in a movie and even though they're hysterical the movie itself is weak. I'm gonna give it 2 maybe 2 1/2 out of 5 stars.
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