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Scene from Cop Out starring Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan
REVIEW — The buddy action formula that skyrocketed to fame after Lethal Weapon is one that will never change. And why should it? After all, it did work for all 4 Lethal Weapon films, and Bad Boys, Beverly Hills Cop, Men In Black, the Rush Hour series ... and the list gets longer with time.
There's no reason for such a strong format to be re-written. Unless you count Cop Out.
The film is the story of two not-so-by-the-book cops who end up caught up in an atypical gang investigation after a murdered store proprietor, the kidnapped ex-girlfriend of a drug kingpin and a stolen baseball card all lead to a gang leader bent on taking over the town.
The initial problem to note is the story. Yes, it's a comedy, but the crime drama element lacks from the stilted and simple plot. While there are many attempts to keep the audience laughing, there are very few moments which cause people to think, and those that do fall way short.
While the focus is on the funny, you would still expect the crime narrative to play out. You won't get that here.
The issue following the story is the laughs. Not to say that there aren't any. They're just plain, cliché and not entirely laugh-worthy. It reaches the point where a knock-knock joke is actually part of the comic act, along with recycling Seann William Scott's dragging-from-the-back-of-the-car scene from Walking Tall.
Now, it would be wrong of me to be expect strong acting from a police comedy. Worse yet is expecting it out of Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan, the movie's main characters, who are not the most critically acclaimed actors.
But what we do get as far as characters go isn't even satisfactory. Instead of creating two people, we end up getting a lot of random dialogue and are left to make sense of it all. And the film has lots of dialogue.
Had it been geared towards making characters to drive the comedy instead of random gags, we might have something of worth. Instead, it's long, lacks direction and gets very old very fast. And the movie's main antagonist, 'Poh Boy' (Guillermo Diaz, 200 Cigarettes) seems like a collection of every villainous cliché ever imagined, without any true motivation.
The movie gets even worse with a lack of regard for time and logic. We're used to ridiculous comedy, but a ridiculous comedy that tries and fails to not be ridiculous is simply depressing. The speed at which things take place in the film just seems wrong, especially when the actions in the film seem to have no significance whatsoever.
The film is just a random sequence of unnatural and inconsequential events and occurrences around these two poorly communicated characters who try to alternate between adequately skilled police officers and witless with guns.
The film is so bad it's criminal. But the consolation is that most of the forced jokes are still mildly funny, to distract from the painful unsatisfactory nature of the film at intervals.
The dreadful acting, cogent cliché and awful pace of the movie is cause for the arrest of Kevin Smith (Clerks, Dogma) for directing this lacklustre comedy.
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