COP OUT Movie Review

The latest Kevin Smith movie, COP OUT, came out this weekend. The movie, starring Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan, tells the story of two veteran NYPD officers who are on the hunt for a one of a kind baseball card that was stolen from Jimmy (Bruce Willis) by a cold blooded drug dealing crime boss who is looking to expand his drug operations all over the east coast.

I was very excited to go see Cop Out for two reasons: 1) it’s a Kevin Smith movie, 2) It’s a Kevin Smith movie. As you can probably tell, I am a fan of Kevin Smith and I have been ever since I saw Dogma which remains one of my all time favorite movies. Now, to be fair, I haven’t been crazy about anything he has done since. Jersey Girl was a bit of a disaster, Zack and Miri Make a Porno was alright. Needless to say, I was hoping for Cop Out to change his streak and bring him back to the top. I am afraid to say that it did not happen.

Cop Out‘s story can best be described as uninteresting at best, if not outright awful. I don’t know if the intent was to play out the movie as a series of rehashed cliches of all the buddy cop movies ever made but that is essentially what it ended up being. If the intent was to make fun of those cliches, then the execution was flawed as the movie felt like it was alternating between serious and farce way too often, resulting in the feeling of watching a bipolar person trying to be funny and serious at the same time. At times, the movie was lighthearted but mostly it was just a mix of boring and cringe-worthy moments.

The acting did not save this movie. Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan were just a complete mismatch with no chemistry whatsoever. Unlike the typical buddy cop movie, you don’t really understand why these two seemingly different people are so connected to each other. Hell this could have easily been resolved with a scene or a few lines of dialogue in which Bruce Willis’ character Jimmy recounts how his partner Paul (Tracy Morgan) saved him from some impending doom. But unfortunately, there was no such moment so we are left with this spectacle of two people who really don’t look like they should be partners but yet are.

Overall, Cop Out was just a boring movie filled with a not very funny and not very entertaining amalgamation of scenes that just made me want to walk out of the movie. As I was watching, I had to keep telling myself the following: “It’s alright, Kevin Smith. This was probably not your fault. I am sure you made an awesome movie but the studio and the powers that be just gutted it before releasing it. You will come back from this.” That was my mantra all throughout the movie and it is the only reason why I still remain a fan of Mr. Smith.

If you have seen the movie, leave a comment below and let me know what you thought of it. For those of you who haven’t seen the movie yet, check out three clips of Cop Out below to get a taste of what you can expect.