The H-Bomb: After a decade and a half of making a name for himself as a potty-mouthed indie auteur, Kevin Smith makes his second attempt to break into mainstream movie making, after his misguided PG-13, blander than white rice effort known as “Jersey Girl”. Is he more successful this time? As I always say, read on…
Kevin Smith is one of my favorite filmmakers. The moment I finished watching “Clerks“ on video for the first time, I immediately rewound the tape and watched it again. That‘s something I never do, but I found the film so fucking hysterical I just had to see it again right then and there. As you may have guessed from reading some of my bin bilge write-ups, Smith’s profane style of humor appeals to me, and I’ve been a devout fan of his work for a decade now.
That said, I honestly was not looking forward to “Cop Out”. The more I heard about this movie, the more I got that sinking feeling that Kev sold out. Why? Well first off, the fact that he didn’t write it. What’s the damn point of Kevin Smith directing someone else’s script when he himself is most distinguished for his obscene and clever writing? The least impressive part of his films has been his simple “point and shoot” style of directing. Secondly, the buddy cop action comedy genre is so fucking tired. From the “Lethal Weapon” movies, to the “Rush Hour” movies, and all the others in between, did we really need another one of these? Thirdly, the trailer I saw looked bloody awful! It made me want to chuck my laptop out the fucking window! Fourthly, Tracey Morgan… more on him later.
Fortunately, for my sake, “Cop Out” turned out to be much better than expected. It’s often funny and watchable throughout. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s good, in fact it’s pretty uneven in spots, but for much of the time, I found it reasonably entertaining.
The story breaks down like this: Bruce Willis and Tracey Morgan play a couple of dicks in NYC who have been partners for nine years. Willis’ daughter is getting married soon and her wedding will cost around fifty grand. Now, fifty grand is A LOT of money for a New York cop, and it doesn’t help that Willis and Morgan have both been suspended from the force, for a complicated mishap, without pay, for a month. Rather than let his daughter’s wealthy but douche baggy step dad pay for the wedding, he decides to sell a valuable vintage baseball card of his to cover the shindig.
Things get (overly) complicated when the card is stolen from Willis, and he and Morgan spend the rest of the movie dealing with burglars, car thieves, Mexican drug dealers, and other assorted low lives in order to get it back.
Yes, on paper, the plot SOUNDS. FUCKING. STUPID. However, the events unfold in a surprisingly unpredictable and enjoyable way… for the most part. While Smith isn’t credited with the screenplay, it actually is every bit as raunchy and R-Rated as anything he’s ever directed. It’s so rife with his style of profanity and sexual humor, that I suspect he did do a polish on the material, after all (The fact that the phrase :“ass-to-mouth“ is uttered at one point confirms this in my mind). And despite the fact that he’s not known for having any kind of visual flare, his skills behind the camera are quite impressive. There are slick camera moves and shaky cam aplenty, and Smith, despite statements he’s made in the past, shows that he has a skill for shooting action scenes. They’re well shot and the violence gets pretty brutal.
He does a good job of balancing the comedic and dark aspects of the material. At times it plays like a very gritty crime drama, while at others it feels like a “Naked Gun” movie. The dynamic between Willis and Morgan is what you would expect; Willis is the straight man and Morgan is the “funny” man. They have good chemistry together and, as such, play off each other well, though predictably, most of their interaction consists of bickering.
On the down side of things, the film is very hit or miss when it comes to the laughs. Morgan is alternately incredibly funny or excruciatingly irritating. This is perfectly encapsulated in a running gag the movie creates for him: whenever he’s speaking to a suspect, he repeats lines from famous cop movies. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Let me put it this way, if you ever want to hear the worst Robocop impression ever, go see this movie.
The same goes for Seann William Scott, who has a supporting role as a Parkour running thief; sometimes funny, sometimes annoying as fucknuts. The movie does drag in places from having scenes allowed to go on for too long and from too many subplots that have nothing to do with the rest of the movie. Were the rival detectives played by Adam Brody and Kevin Pollack necessary? Did we need the plot thread where Tracey Morgan’s wife may or may not be cheating on him?
Not to mention there are many scenes that could’ve and should’ve been left on the cutting room floor. One that comes to mind is an amusing yet lengthy and totally unnecessary scene between Seann William Scott and some random dude in a jail cell. While watching it, I kept thinking to myself, “Why the fuck is this scene in the movie? What purpose does it serve?” None, at all, as do a number of others.
When all is said and done, it is a perfectly decent action-comedy that mixes the laughs and the gunfire well, but it is flawed and more likely is worth a rental, and not a trip to the theater. If you do go to see it, be sure to stay through the first part of the end credits, because there is a hilarious scene that ends the film proper.
