Are there two New Jersey-born directors who happen to share the name Kevin Smith? That question kept whizzing through my head as I watched this painful buddy action-comedy which makes the Beverly Hills Cop and Rush Hour movies seem like masterpieces of invention and comic timing.
Sure, Cop Out has much in common with Smith’s previous effort Zack and Miri Make a Porno: both are crass, bereft of humour, and poorly acted. But could this be the same Kevin Smith who made his name directing the hip, edgy, low-budget indie comedies Clerks, Clerks II and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back?
Apparently so. The explanation might be that Smith has lost his mojo in trying to make the transition from the indie world to more expensive, mainstream Hollywood movies. Or maybe he’s now happy just to take the studios’ cheques and think less about the consequences.
Whatever, Cop Out is an embarrassment, not least to its stars: Bruce Willis, who ought to know better, and Tracy Morgan, a TV actor (30 Rock) and stand-up comedian who could be excused for not knowing a lot about the film business.
They play wisecracking Brooklyn detectives Jimmy Monroe and Paul Hodges, who’ve been partners for nine years. The opening scene isn’t promising as Paul (Morgan) interrogates a suspect by spouting lines from various movies including a profane refrain from Die Hard. To that, Willis’ Jimmy deadpans, 'Not familiar with that one," which was the first and only time I laughed.
To cut a very long and boring story short, the duo get suspended without pay for 30 days after their suspect gets killed and Jimmy indiscriminately fires at the perp on a crowded subway station. That’s inconvenient because Jimmy, a divorcee, was saving money to pay for the upcoming wedding of his beloved daughter, and he loathes his ex-wife’s smug husband. He’s forced to sell a rare baseball card which gets stolen by manic, potty-mouthed thief Dave (Seann William Scott). The trail leads to a vicious, baseball-obsessed Mexican gangster (Guillermo Diaz) and a hottie hostage (Ana de la Reguera, cast, one suspects, for her looks rather than her ability to scream and curse in Spanish). A very weak sub-plot revolves around Paul’s suspicions that his wife is having an affair.
The violence is cartoonish, the characters are caricatures, and the attempts at humour are often desperate, such as having a 10-year-old car thief say 'fuck,’ and Dave’s poop jokes.
Willis often casts sideways glances and looks pained, which may have been his way of telegraphing, 'What the hell am I doing in this stupid scene?" As for Morgan, well, he’s no Eddie Murphy (when he was good, last century), or Chris Tucker.
Smith supposedly set out to pay homage to 80s cop movies such as Beverly Hills Cop, Lethal Weapon and 48 Hours, but ends up trashing the genre. This was the first film where he didn’t write the script, so more fool him for accepting the dim-witted screenplay by TV writers Robb and Mark Cullen. The biggest cop out of all may be the director, who hasn’t stayed true to the principles of smart filmmaking which he espoused early in his career.
