Cop Out (Rafe's Review)

It’s a running gag in Cop Out that the detectives played by Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan have probably watched too many bad buddy-cop movies, and resort to a clichéd, abused use of that dialog when playing “bad cop” with a suspect. Perhaps the unfortunate (and unintended) punchline of the joke is that most of the movie sounds like a bad buddy-cop movie, even when the characters aren’t supposed to. For a movie directed by Kevin Smith, a writer who is well known for his penchant with dialog, this is a tremendous shame. Even more unfortunate is that the dialog is only the beginning of the problems with Cop Out.

Willis and Morgan play two detectives who open the movie by celebrating nine years together as partners. A botched operation lands the two cops in hot water, suspended for a month, although that really doesn’t deter their police work at all. Soon the two officers find themselves in the mist of an attempt by gang boss Poh Boy (Guillermo Diaz) to take over a much larger drug trade business, while the two cops also juggle personal problems and a not-so-friendly rivalry with another pair of detectives (Adam Brody and Kevin Pollak). Throw in a odd partnership with an eccentric robber (Seann William Scott) and hilarity ensues… or at least it’s supposed to.

There’s no denying Cop Out’s place as a buddy-cop film. The movie embraces its genre, carrying a score that sounds like something out of Beverly Hills Cop and tossing out punchlines that specifically jab at movies like Die Hard and Lethal Weapon. A lot of the dialog between Jimmy and Paul (Willis and Morgan respectively) serves as an homage to other entries in the buddy-cop subgenre. But at some point the homage has to end and originality has to begin, and Cop Out flounders in that area, failing to provide anything of substance that isn’t a riff or a jab at other movies.

Cop Out’s biggest problem is that I, as an audience member, don’t buy any part of the story for more than a second. Tracy Morgan and Bruce Willis would have been better served as a mismatched new partnership than one that had been working together for nine years. Willis has gotten to the point where he doesn’t have to exert much effort to play the grumpy cop (which is one of the strongest parts of the movie), but his personal crisis - a concern about paying for his daughter’s wedding – feels arbitrary and removed from the rest of the character, despite introducing an important plot element. Meanwhile, Morgan’s character is perpetually clueless and outdone by the criminals around him, yet we’re supposed to believe he’s been a cop for at least nine years? I just don’t buy it. On the opposite side, Diaz plays a wonderfully malevolent gang boss until he shares screen time with Willis and Morgan, at which point he transforms into a melodramatic villain desperate for a mustache to twirl. It’s not a send up of other cop movies; it’s just abysmal characterization across the board.

I’m a big fan of Kevin Smith. Until now, the writer/director hadn’t put out a movie that I didn’t like (including the overly berated Jersey Girl). Unfortunately, that streak ends with Cop Out. I applaud Smith for stepping out of his normal comfort zone and directing something he didn’t directly create. Unfortunately, this movie is merely adequate, suffering from too much homage, weak dialog, and a completely lack of credibility when it comes to the story and characters. I can’t help but wonder what the movie might have been like had Smith taken a pass at the script. Unfortunately, Cop Out only has a few highlights (Scott and Willis), but is otherwise a bland and unfortunate addition to the buddy-cop mix.

-Rafe Telsch