Honestly, I wanted to like this movie. I'm a fan of Kevin Smith, Tracy Morgan and Bruce Willis.
"What could be bad about this," I said to myself.
Answer: almost everything.
"Cop Out" stars Willis and Morgan as Jimmy Monroe and Paul Hodges, respectively, long-time detective partners who have found themselves being suspended after the death of an informant.
This suspension comes at an inopportune time for Monroe, as his daughter's wedding is coming up and he needed money to pay for the nuptials.
So, Monroe goes to try and sell a rare baseball card to get the money he needs, only to have the card stolen from him at the point of sale.
The rest of the film is really just a long string of cop buddy flick cliches that involve another detective duo (Kevin Pollak and Adam Brody), a Mexican drug lord (Weeds' Guillermo Diaz) and a burglar with a feces-infused sobriquet (Seann William Scott).
Normally, I'd actually take the time to go through these plot points with you here, but I think that could be construed as encouraging you to see this film, and I certainly don't want that to happen.
The cast actually does an adequate job of performing their scenes, but lackluster, hackneyed writing can only take you so far.
Also, Tracy Morgan dressed in a giant cell phone costume is funny for the first three seconds you see it.
After that, the whole get-up becomes a cumbersome gag that Stevie Wonder could see coming.
There did seem to be a miniscule amount of chemistry between Willis and Morgan in the film, but I can't tell if that is actually chemistry or if Willis was just trying to keep Morgan happy and comfortable so he wouldn't do anything insane.
Morgan has always seemed like the type that treads a thin line between crazy funny and actual crazy.
The true lesson to be learned from "Cop Out" is that Kevin Smith only needs to direct movies written by Kevin Smith.
Smith is undoubtedly one of the masters of "dick and fart joke" humor, but the realm of action/comedy seems to be one outside of his reach.
If anything, Smith's normal films are "inaction" ones, as characters normally just throw long strings of dialogue back and forth at one another, with the occasional crude comment or Star Wars reference.
That's what I want and expect from a Smith film.
"Cop Out" was not and should not be called a Kevin Smith film.
I realize Smith is tired of drawing from the Jersey well for his flicks, but that's how he's built his career and that's what his loyal fans actually want to see.
Mr. Smith, I beg you, get Jason Mewes and the rest of the usual suspects back together and give us another Jersey flick.
Or, if that feels like too much, just do another "Evening With Kevin Smith"DVD.
Just stay far, far away from any more scripts you had nothing to do with, for all of our sakes.
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