Release by Warner Brothers
Release Date: Feb. 26th, 2010
Starring: Bruce Willis, Tracy Morgan, Juan Carlos Hernández, and Jason Lee
Written by Bruce Cullen and Mark Cullen
Directed by Kevin Smith
Rated R (pervasive language including sexual references, violence and brief sexuality)
Kevin Smith should be ashamed of himself. Here is a writer/director who has put out some of the best comedies of the last twenty years and now he is slumming it with this piece of shit? I know that he wanted to do a Bruce Willis movie, but he should have picked something else because Cop Out is a terrible movie. The idea of having Bruce Willis in a send-up of the types of movies he is used to making is a great idea, but this movie just doesn't work.
The blame, at least at the scripting stage, is not Smith's fault. The two writers who wrote this pile of trash think that they wrote a love letter of a movie to all of the buddy cop movies of the 80's, but what they have given us is a very lame excuse for a movie let alone a send-up.
Bruce Willis and Tracey Morgan play Brooklyn cops who are trying to get Willis' rare baseball card back. They stumble upon a drug operation while looking for said card. This leads to boring action scenes and lame comedy bits.
First off, the whole movie rests on Willis getting this baseball card back. He needs it so he can sell it to pay for his daughter's wedding. This plot device wouldn't work on a tv cop show let alone a major motion picture. If people would have known that this was what the plot was the movie would not have made any money.
Why, you must ask? Because no cop movie that I have seen has had a plot this dumb. These guys are running around, getting into chases, shooting at people, and blowing things up for a fucking baseball card.
The second reason this movie doesn't work is Tracey Morgan. The man is very gifted and very funny on 30 Rock, but here he is just throwing out any and everything that he thinks is funny to see what sticks and what doesn't. Most of it doesn't work. He is really good in small doses on 30 Rock, where he is given better dialogue, but in a movie that rests on him being the comic relief, he fails miserably.
The final reason that this movie fails is the absence of control on the part of Kevin Smith. This movie is all over the place. Sometimes its a comedy, sometimes it tries to be a straight up action movie. The movies that Cop Out is trying to send-up- 48 Hours and Lethal Weapon being the biggest influences- focused on the characters first, then got to the comedy and action. We could relate to those characters in some way and they had depth. None of the characters here have an inch of death, staying in the one-dimensional, cardboard variety. We never care what happens to these characters and are rather annoyed by them.
Ultimately the movie rests on the shoulders of Smith, who not only directed the movie but also edited the movie. Unlike with his other movie, Smith shows that he can not make a movie that he didn't write. Here his lack of restraint shines through like this is his first movie.
Had this been Smith's first movie it would be written off as a bad debut, but we know that the man can make very good movies so he doesn't get a pass.
Smith has said on his podcast and in interviews that he is very proud of the movie and is happy that it was a success. The first part I do not understand for the reasons that I have stated above. I, however, think that he was due to have a hit movie. I just wish that it would have been a better one.
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