Review: Cop Out (2010)

Cop Out (2010)

FAIL

COMEDY
U.S. Release Date: 02/26/10
Running Length: 118 Minutes
MPAA Classification: R (Language, Violence, and Brief Sexuality.)
Theatrical Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Cast: Bruce Willis, Tracy Morgan, Sean William Scott, Rashida Jones, Michelle Trachtenberg, Juan Carlos Hernández
Director: Kevin Smith
Screenplay: Robb Cullen, Mark Cullen
Cinematography: David Klein
Music: Harold Faltermeyer
U.S. Distributor: Warner Bros. Pictures

Review by: Carter Moulton

2/24/10

Cop Out is bad. I’m not going to waste time with character names; you’ve seen them before. Swap Bruce Willis for Mel Gibson—oop, that’s already been done—or any other middle-aged stone-faced rebel, and you get the idea; Swap Tracy Morgan for Martin Lawrence—oop that’s already been done—and you get the idea. It’s the classic combo #1: hardnosed brute and fast-talking black sidekick. It’s the Hollywood system at its worst.

Kevin Smith, who for the first time directs a film he hasn’t written, loses control in this conventional buddy-copper and turns a story worthy of no more than 50 minutes of screentime into a two-hour slopfest with unnecessary subplots, misfiring gags, and cringingly-bad pacing. I think it’s safe to say Smith, director of Clerks, Dogma, and Zack and Miri Make A Porno, should stick to directing his own words.

Cop Out, formerly known as A Couple of Cops and A Couple of Dicks, was penned by Robb and Mark Cullen. Their story is…basically this: Bruce Willis is divorced and has a daughter; she’s getting married; he is suspended at work and doesn’t have money to pay for the wedding; the stepfather offers to pay for the wedding and Willis gets humiliated; Willis tries to sell an antique baseball card to cover the expenses of the wedding; the card store is robbed by Sean William Scott; Scott sells the baseball card to, check out this stereotype, a faith-driven Mexican gang—the posse leader actually says, “Forgive me father, for I’m about to sin.”; it’s up to Willis and Morgan to find the baseball card. A two-hour movie is about the search for a baseball card.

This would be acceptable if the film was amusing. Instead we get a 20-minute scene where Sean William Scott and Tracy Morgan yell at each other, play copy-cat, and tell knock-knock jokes. Lines like, cover your eyes, “You just shot at the wrong motherfucka, motherfucka,” and, “Oh shit, he’s taking a shit in the house,” are a few of the desperate attempts to churn swear words into hearty laughs.

Any laughs manufactured by Cop Out come from the fact that the actors and directors are actually involved in such a dung heap. I laughed at Bruce Willis—not the film. There’s a particular moment when Willis, undercover, climbs into the second story window of a gang member's house, turns, looks out the window at Tracy Morgan, and says, “TADAH!” He crunches his face and gives a hand gesture. It’s the low point of Willis’ career—a moment he’ll always want to forget; a moment I haven’t been able to get out of my head.