Cop Out

I went to this movie in 2010 with my dad and honestly, I remember having a pretty good time. It was a good time because it was one of the first Rated R films I went to in the theaters, my dad and I were both fans of Tracey Morgan, and I had a dumb sense of humor back then. And watching it now, I can only wonder if my dad thought it was funny then or if he was just entertaining a 17 year old kid who let's be honest hadn't really found himself and wouldn't for at least another decade.

Cop Out follows the story of NYPD Detectives Jimmy Monroe (played by Bruce Willis) and Paul Hodges (played by Tracey Morgan). They are doing a pretty formulaic comedic buddy cop romp against a Mexican cartel.

The bigger part of the film is that Jimmy has a daughter (played by Michelle Trachtenberg) who is getting married and he has to sell a rare baseball card to get the money to pay for it so he can show up his ex-wife's new husband (played by Jason Lee). The baseball card is stolen however but Sean William Scott doing an audition for Deadpool but badly, and the two stories collide as the baseball card is offered to the two detectives by the Mexican Cartel if they can retrieve a stolen car with valuable cargo.

So the plot seems like it should be pretty straight forward. It's stoic 2010 Bruce Willis as we started to realize that the less hair he has the less he cares about projects, and Tracey Morgan doing Tracey Morgan riffs. But somehow the movie not only manages to fumble a pretty straight forward, albeit formulaic 80's buddy cop premise, it throws in a bunch of twists and turns that just feel weird and pointless.

Its worth starting with the films two leads, Morgan and Willis. I guess I understand where Kevin Smith's mind was with these two. They are really polar opposites. Morgan is loud and emotional while Bruce Willis is quiet and stoic. And what's kind of funny is that you can kind of tell Bruce Willis is trying really hard and failing to not laugh at Morgan throughout the entire film.

But their friendship never really feels like anything. It never feels like there is any growth or tension between the two. And whats more, they don't play off each other very well. Morgan is loud and obnoxious, but Bruce Willis is just not really good at countering that in ways that land. I'll give Smith some credit that on paper this sounds like a match made in heaven, but it doesn't execute well.

And then there's Sean William Scott...

Again, I'll give credit where its due. I can see where an annoying criminal would be a funny foil to these two and Scott is always so close to making me laugh. He really reminds me of a Ryan Reynolds rough draft that just needs a couple more bad movies to hone that wise cracking humor.

However, he's weirdly utilized, showing up for a small period of time then disappearing until later on in the film. And when he is on screen, again, he just doesn't hit that mark.

And he's kind of a good example of how scattered this movie is because there are so many loose little side quests and B plots these guys go on when in reality the plot should be super straight forward.

Kevin Pollack and Adam Brody play a duo of rival cops that just kind of meander around the film and they're weird because they're not incompetent, they're not evil, and most importantly they're not funny. They're just there and I had honestly forgotten about them. And that's weird because time has told us that both these guys are really funny and there are so many routes they could have gone. They could have had them be obnoxious foils to the main characters, they could have been the cops that just get shit on the entire movie. But instead they're just two generic white guys that the movie cuts away to for no reason.

Same goes for Rashida Jones who plays Tracey Morgan's wife who he thinks is cheating on him. This plot leads no where and wasted time.

Then half way through the film they add this chick and the movie becomes Transporter or something. Ana de la Regura plays a woman mixed up with the cartel and suddenly, instead of Bruce Willis and Tracey Morgan trying to get the baseball card, the mission becomes to save her and bring down this cartel.

And again, I don't think Kevin Smith didn't have a goal in mind. It's clear he wanted to make buddy cop comedy very much in the vein of Beverly Hills Cop or Bad Boys. You can tell from the tropes, the music, the action, all the ingredients are there but they just don't mix at all.

The movie also has some serious tone issues.

Like its clear in the first scene that the movie is a comedy. And its clear that Kevin Smith wanted to make a Rated R comedy. But somewhere, the movie lost track of the line between Rated R comedy and straight on parody. If this movie was trying to be satirical or a parody of 80's buddy cop comedies that I could understand some of the choices, but the movie never feels like its self aware.

At this point, I don't think anything I'm saying isn't anything people haven't said over the ten years this movie has existed. I think I'm more late to the party because I remember actually laughing quite a bit at this movie... in highschool. As it stands now, this movie is rough. Real rough.

But those are my thoughts on Cop Out. What did you think? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as send me your requests for films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

Thanks for reading!