Cop Out
Jeremey Gingrich
March 1st, 2010
AUGH! This movie is so frustrating! Not like a “math problem you just can’t get” frustrating, but a “what the hell were these people thinking” kind of frustrating. COP OUT used all of these stars, all this talent, and the direction of a great comedic writer/director in Kevin Smith who should know better and gave us a movie essentially made for 13-year-olds. Knock-knock jokes, really? Poop jokes, seriously? I felt bad for Bruce Willis and Kevin Pollack – the older, better actors pulled into this either on a dare or because they lost a bet. And I feel bad for Tracy Morgan, whose stock was really rising with his success on “30 Rock,” though he essentially plays the same outlandish character here. But I really feel bad for those people, myself included, who walk into this movie thinking they’re going to see a funny action/buddy cop movie, and instead get endless sophomoric garbage, including Sean William Scott spending way too much of the movie, and seemingly countless time out of my life, repeating other people.
First, the title. Kevin Smith initially wanted to call this movie A COUPLE OF DICKS. The studio, fearing the small box office of his last movie with the word “Porno” in the title, made him change it. So in an effort to stick it to the studio he titled it COP OUT. Ha ha very funny…but it still leaves movie-goers scratching their heads. Next, the actors. Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan are funny guys, and I did get a few laughs out of this movie. But most of the jokes either seemed forced or juvenile… and in most cases were just stupid. The funniest ones were used in the trailer. There’s the typical rival cop partners played by Kevin Pollack and Adam Brody, and they exchange insults as the rivals do, but their scenes together and side stories are just dumb. But then the plot of the movie itself is dumb, a generic construct used to put these characters in funny situations. It starts out with a search for a drug dealer – then becomes about Willis’ character, Jimmy Monroe, needing to sell an old baseball card to pay for his daughter’s wedding – leading to a robbery of said card by sensitive idiot Sean William Scott – leading to a stolen car with a beautiful woman in the trunk – leading back to the drug dealer.
Tracy Morgan has a side story with his wife played by Rashida Jones, a funny actress in her own right but this is a Boy’s Club here, and she couldn’t even fake chemistry in her limited scenes with Morgan and despite being his wife never kisses him. The villain is played by Guillermo Diaz, in a menacing turn he is used to after his character in “Weeds,” with the ridiculous name of Poh Boy. And though most of Sean William Scott’s character annoyed the hell out of me, he did have some funny lines as the thief who steals Willis’ prized baseball card, and then the writer’s (Robb and Mark Cullen, who are apparently in middle school), put in a stupid aside in which Scott breaks into houses just to use their bathrooms. And though I say I should expect more from Kevin Smith as a director, I have to remind myself in DOGMA he did have a 6-foot Poop Monster.
But no, we should expect more. Kevin Smith is funny and talented. Bruce Willis has a resume riddled with great action/buddy pictures. Kevin Pollack is a funny, respected actor. And Tracy Morgan was Dominican Lou on “Saturday Night Live.” Okay, lowered expectations a bit. But by and large, this movie is a waste of time and money, both on the part of everyone who made it, and everyone who watches it. And I realize, in retrospect, that that last statement was a little harsh, so I wanted to apologize to Bruce Willis…but come on. Poop jokes, Bruce?
[fbcomments]
