Before I talk about Kevin Smith’s recent failure to live up to expectations, I would like to apologize for the lack of posts over the course of the last week. When I started CrapShoot, I was truly excited at the prospect of getting to chew out the crap that deserves no mercy. I rarely get to vent about the things that I hate so it has been a genuinely refreshing experience. After suffering a massive hardware failure of something very important to me however, I was cut off from the means by which I intended to review two of the last films in the lineup.
The situation is taken care of now but after dropping a lot of money to fix it and feeling the wear of 5 bad movies in a row, I am left feeling that if I have to stomach one more bad movie piled on with the hassle of the last week, I will be powerfully tempted to jump out of the next elevated window that I see. So for the sake of my own sanity, if nothing else, I feel the need to change pace early and start thinking positively. By no means is this a cancellation; I still intend to watch the remaining garbage that I have picked out, just don’t expect it in the coming weeks. With that said however, I still have one more to tackle before I put this event behind me for the time being.
In all honesty, despite the mixed reception of his career in the critical and public eye (or perhaps in spite of it), I have no true opinion of Kevin Smith. I’ve heard the praise over “Clerks” and “Chasing Amy”, I’ve heard the criticism over “Mallrats” and “Clerks 2” and I’ve heard every comment regarding “Zack and Miri Make a Porno” under the sun, from stupid to underrated but I have not seen enough of the man’s work to give a genuine comment on his career. So keep in mind, the fact that I hold no ill will towards him when I say “Cop Out” sucks.
I may have brought it up before but in case I haven’t, the worst bad movies always end up being the bad comedies. Nothing is worse than being pummeled with joke after joke without having a single laugh. It turns what is intended to be light fun into a dull chore to sit through.
In what is supposedly an homage to the buddy cop film, “Cop Out” stars Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan as loose cannon NYPD officers Jimmy Monroe and Paul Hodges respectively. Hoping to pay for his daughter’s wedding, Jimmy takes on a case in hopes that the payoff will be able to cover the expensive ceremony.
So as anybody that could have watched a trailer could guess, the biggest problem with “Cop Out” is that it just isn’t funny. I can count maybe 4 to 5 times that I may have chuckled throughout the movie but never once was the viewing experience worthwhile. Most of the jokes fall between random and obnoxious or simply flat. Furthermore I don’t exactly know what kind of “homage” this film is supposed to be paying but spouting off random lines from completely unrelated genre fiction to unbelievably disorient a criminal into spilling secrets is not exactly the first image that comes to mind when I think of a buddy cop movie.
The comedy isn’t helped by the fact that acting is all of the place. As a whole, the acting is consistently bland with the odd exception of the Willis and Morgan. Morgan is the typical high energy, over the top, black, annoying comic relief. I found myself mesmerized by Willis however, who spends the entire movie with this tired, dull look on his face as if he knew this was not going to go well for his career. It’s like that feeling you get whenever you have to get out of bed for work on a Monday morning because it’s the start of a long week. It’s often joked that certain people in Hollywood should apologize for the terrible work that they’re in. This movie was by no means bad enough to demand an apology for but judging from the look on his face in the film, you get the feeling that getting one out of him wouldn’t be that difficult.
What may be even worse than the comedy of the movie however, is that I was somehow disappointed after sitting through the whole thing. I saw potential in this thing, I really did. There are a few jokes here and there that elicited a chuckle from me and I was actually surprised to find a moment or two in which Morgan and Willis both had genuine chemistry, leading to scenes that were actually touching. I honestly wouldn’t mind seeing this movie rewritten and reshot with competent writing and direction.
As far as bad movies go, this one may waste the most potential out of everything that I’ve seen on this list so far. If you’re really curious, you won’t beat yourself up for renting it but after all is said and done, you may be left asking why you bothered in the first place.
4/10
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