Cop Out

In the opening scene of Kevin Smith’s buddy cop film, Cop Out, Detective Paul Hodges (Tracy Morgan) explains to his partner that his interrogation techniques are homage to famous movies. Of course, Hodges repeatedly mispronounces it HOMM-age. This bit is there in part to set up the subsequent sequence where Hodges gets information from a suspect by quoting nearly every movie released in the last 25 years. My personal favorite was including the line “Nobody puts baby in a corner” in a police interrogation. But I think there is something more significant to introducing the concept of homage at the very outset of this movie. This film is itself homage to the 80’s cop movies that were staples of my movie-going adolescence.

So what is the net result? Basically it breaks down like this:

The good news for Kevin Smith – Cop Out is a recognizable homage to 80’s buddy cop films.

The bad news for Kevin Smith – Cop Out is a recognizable homage to 80’s buddy cop films.

We tend to forget that not all of those films that fell into that genre were classics. Most of them weren’t really that good. For every 48 Hours (1982) and Lethal Weapon (1987) that I loved, I had to sit through fifteen like Red Heat (1988, James Belushi, Arnold Schwarzenegger). These boasted cookie cutter plotlines involving a foreign drug Kingpin that ended with a showdown where the cops picked off the Kingpin’s henchmen in ascending order of importance before killing the head honcho himself after a tense stand-off.

So while there is not as much depth to this movie as I might have hoped, I think the critics who have trashed it have missed the boat. There is a lot that I thought was very well done in this movie. Just when I thought I had seen everything that Seann William Scott had to offer, he raised his game significantly in this film. Scott plays a type of cat burglar who swipes the extremely valuable baseball card owned by Hodges partner Jimmy Monroe (Bruce Willis). Hodges and Monroe later catch Scott’s character and the three share car ride that provides some solid laughs. Laughs that I don’t believe were in the script but rather came from the genuine chemistry that Scott and Morgan had onscreen.

This is important because Morgan and Willis had zero chemistry on the screen. At best you could describe Willis’ performance as understated. In reality though, you were watching an actor going through the motions simply to pick up a paycheck. This was the least engaging I have ever seen Bruce Willis in a film and when he is the dead fish up on the screen, you know there is something very wrong happening here. It is unfortunate because those who shared the screen with him did a nice job by and large. I liked the duo of Kevin Pollack and Adam Brody who played the in house police rivals to Hodges and Monroe. The first time we see the four of them together on screen produces some genuine laughs. I wish Pollack and Brody had more screen time in the film.

Also falling into that category was Rashida Jones who played Hodges’ devoted and loving wife. Jones is luminescent on the screen and captures your attention in every scene she is in. Sadly Jones came off as underutilized here in a script that required nothing more of her than to assure her over-the-top jealous husband that she was not having an affair. It seemed like she did that five or six times throughout the movie. I kept waiting for the big payoff to this elaborate setup and when the end credits finally rolled, I was disappointed to say the least.

Much has been made by the fact that this is Kevin Smith’s first studio film from a script he did not write. I think if Smith made a misstep with Cop Out it’s not giving it more of a feeling of being a Kevin Smith film. Smith has made his career by combining broad and even juvenile comedy with sensitive and poignant young adult drama. Chasing Amy and Dogma were perhaps two of his finest examples of this touch. Cop Out doesn’t have that second layer that makes us care deeply for his characters. Jimmy Monroe needs to get his baseball card back so he can pay for his daughter’s wedding. Paul Hodges is afraid his wife is having an affair. This is as deep as this movie gets in developing it main characters. For this I lay the blame with the screenwriters and not Smith himself. I think this movie would have been better off with the Kevin Smith re-write of this script. We would have had all that works in the love letter to 80’s cop films along with some much need character development.

In the end, Smith gets pretty much all he can out of this premise and script, given the fact that Willis’ charisma was AWOL during the entire film. There is a plot that while thin and predictable does hold together from beginning til end. There are nice moments with Sean William Scott where we see how much fun this genre can be. The movie was intended to be silly fun with the prerequisite cop scenes that won’t make you think too hard and in that context, it delivers on its promise.

Circumstances Under Which To See This Movie: While out on a long walk on the beach you trip over something which turns out to be a magic lantern containing a genie. He grants you your one wish which is to be a thirteen year old boy. You then find yourself wanting to see a movie you would appreciate with your new found perspective and taste. Under these circumstances I would suggest seeing Cop Out.