 "Photo: Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures")
Here we go again. Brace yourself for 2010’s first installment of mindless, gross-out comedies.
Director, Kevin Smith’s “Cop Out” is a recycled buddy-cop movie about a white-veteran level headed policeman Jimmy (Bruce Willis) and his black fanatical partner Paul (Tracy Morgan) who together take-down a vicious drug lord.
Smith is most known for writing and directing "hitting-below-the-belt" comedies like “Clerk” and “Zack and Miri Make a Porno.” Smith sticks to his signature satire, however he left the writing to brothers Robb and Mark Cullens.
Sadly the Cullens brothers don’t even make an attempt to venture into new movie lands. Instead, they stick to the played out but always lucrative buddy-cop formula.
This film is full of throw-backs and clichés. Like the buddy-cop movies that have preceded it, Jimmy and Paul are asked by their lieutenant to turn in their badges and guns although they’re in the middle of a big case within the first 15 minutes of the movie. Of course Jimmy and Paul refuse to walk away from the case.
In addition, the Cullens brothers also recycle an overused secondary storyline with Jimmy and Paul’s investigation being constantly undermined by their square, straight-laced policemen nemesis played by Adam Brody and Kevin Pollak.
This movie feels like a modern day “Beverly Hills Cop” movie. It's filmed in present-day Brooklyn. However, the dialogue is full of old cliché’s and at unusual times scenes are injected with old-school hip-hop songs.
Most notably when Eric B. and Rakim’s 80’s hit “Follow The Leader,” was booming through the theater during the movie’s biggest chase scene.
Willis (Jimmy) and Morgan (Paul) play NYPD detectives who are trying to recover Jimmy’s stolen valuable baseball card. The recovery of this base ball card is vital to Jimmy because he needs to sell it in order to pay for his daughters impending wedding.
His long-time partner and friend Paul agrees to help him get his card back. Although Paul is totally on-board with helping Jimmy recover his card, he often finds himself side-tracked and preoccupied with suspensions that his wife is cheating on him during their long police hours.
In their pursuit to recover the card they discover that it ended up in the hands of a ruthless Mexican drug lord, Poh Boy (Guillermo Diaz), who collects baseball memorabilia. Poh Boy agrees to return the baseball card if Jimmy and Paul find and recover a Mercedes Benz that was stolen from him.
The action begins as Jimmy and Paul find themselves in car chases and shootouts while simultaneously trying to recover both the baseball card and the Benz. The car chases are exiting and adrenaline-rushing, while the shootouts make you cringe.
Adding light to otherwise intense scenes is Morgan who is simply hilarious. It’s obvious that Morgan adlibbed throughout most of his scenes but it seemed to work. However, he is almost upstaged by equally funny Seann William Scott who plays Dave, an off-beat, quirky crook that Jimmy befriends.
Not to be overshadowed Willis holds his own, playing off both Morgan and Scott with his own dry humor.
All in all this is a funny movie. “Cop Out” is filled with more than enough wit and laughs to make up for the sub-standard storyline.
I recommend that movie goers see this movie without their thinking-cap on and without any expectations but to have a good time and to laugh.
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