Cop Out

Starring: Bruce Willis, Tracey Morgan, Juan Carlos Hernandez, Kevin Pollak, Adam Brody, Michelle Trachtenberg, Jason Lee, Rashida Jones, Seann William Scott, Fred Armisen
Directed by: Kevin Smith
Rating: R
Genre: Action, Comedy, Crime
2010

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: After ruining a case, two cops (Bruce Willis, Tracey Morgan) are suspended. When they are robbed of an extremely rare baseball card, they begin a mad search to locate it.

Review:

Tim: I was interested in seeing how Kevin Smith directed the first movie he didn't write himself. Smith has always been a talented writer and director, even though I didn't always love his efforts. This film feels like a bit of a cop out itself, and a bit disappointing. Smith is always such an excellent writer of dialogue, and this movie is missing the biting, intellectual dialogue for which he is famous. I seemed to detect a few moments when he may have tweaked the script, but Robb and Mark Cullen are not equal writers, and the film suffers as a result. It made me wonder if this movie would have been better with Smith penning the script.

I understand that the supporters of this film claim that Smith was making an 80s action comedy buddy cop movie that just happened to be set in 2010. This was a throwback to those older movies, and supposedly explains why this movie was weakly written, cliched filled, and overall, not very funny. The cliches are apparently purposeful- I understood this to a certain extent, but it certainly didn't make this movie any more enjoyable. I appreciated that Smith was making a film in the vein of the 80s action comedies- a film that his father would have loved. Still, this is a pretty bad movie.

Whether or not you buy that this film's flaws are explained away because of the intent of the film (I don't), you have to admit that this is a flawed movie. The script is certainly reminiscent of those banal 80s movies, but why is that a good thing? If you make an homage to something crappy, why would you expect it to be any good? The script is weak and oftentimes boring. But, that isn't the biggest flaw. My biggest problem with this movie is that the acting is pretty atrocious.

Bruce Willis is an experienced, good actor. However, the lines of dialogue he was expected to utter appeared to make him somewhat uncomfortable. I never bought his performance for a moment. He appeared to be trying to hard, and never really was able to embrace his character. Willis has such a talent for embodying his roles- I never see "Bruce Willis" in a Die Hard movie- I see John McClane. However, here, I never got past the fact that this was Bruce Willis, swearing a bit more, and making fun of his past roles. It simply didn't work.

I am not a big fan of Tracey Morgan. While he did a better job here than I expected, he was still pretty annoying. I didn't think he and Willis worked very well together. It was nearly impossible for me to believe they were partners for nine years, or whatever it was. They had no real chemistry, and I felt like they had been working together for nine days, not years. This is a small problem that has some big ramifications.

The supporting cast is mostly good. I loved Kevin Pollak and Adam Brody as the two cocky, "bad" cops. This is such an 80s cliche, but this is one that worked here, mostly because Pollak and Brody embraced these roles. I was sad that they were mostly wasted, and I wish they had more opportunities to make an impact on the film. I have always had a soft spot for Seann William Scott, and he gives one of the best performances of the film. He is funny, charismatic, and is enjoyable to watch on film. His ad-libbed repeating scenes were some of the funniest of the film. I loved his character, and desperately wish they had given him more screen time. The film was immediately better every time he opened his mouth or grinned that stupid grin of his, and I was disappointed his time on screen was minimal. I liked seeing Jason Lee and Rashida Jones, but they, again, had far too little to do. Wisely, Kevin Smith brings a strong overall cast, but sadly, Willis and Morgan have way too much screen time.

Overall, Cop Out is simply another silly, failed effort. There were a few legitimately exciting and funny moments, but these are too few and far between. The movie isn't nearly as strong as Smith would have liked, so I have to chalk this up to a failed effort. I know the fans of this film have a lot of excuses about this movie, but I have to say the entertainment factor here was quite minimal. This movie could have been better, and Smith should have given us better.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 5.5



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