SHOCKER! Ray Hates COP OUT!

rating: 1

I'm not a fan of Kevin Smith. I mean, I wrote this almost two years ago, and my feelings haven't changed much since then. I think Smith has a way with dirty language, but I don't find his scripts as a whole to be clever or thoughtfully constructed. And then there's his direction, which can only be described as flaccid and uninspired. His latest film, Cop Out, is a departure for Smith in that it marks the first time he has directed a feature that wasn't scripted by him. That, unfortunately, doesn't prove to be a positive, since screenwriters Robb and Mark Cullen are obviously aping Smith's sophomoric level of toilet humor. I can only imagine Smith's first reading of this script, cackling like a lobotomized hyena at mentions of "ass-to-mouth" and dick-sucking monkeys; he must have felt like someone was reading his wet dreams. Fittingly, they also managed to construct a limp, haphazard storyline that perfectly imitates the carelessness that Smith regularly displays in his own screenplays. Bruce Willis stars as Jimmy, a weathered cop who has had to endure a nine year partnership with streetwise Paul (Tracy Morgan). We've seen this police dynamic already in at least five hundred films, but Willis and Morgan have some decent chemistry and make some of it feel fresher than it deserves. The "story" that befalls these two characters is far too convoluted and inconsequential to dissect, although I can say that it involves a silly Mexican gangster (Guillermo Diaz), a stolen baseball card, and a thief and parkour specialist (Seann William Scott). I can also confirm that much of it is very laborious and not very funny. The script meanders aimlessly, pinpointing on endless character asides that are supposed to be (a) funny and (b) enlightening, yet end up being (c) pointless. For instance, Morgan's character is jealous of his wife, so he installs a camera in their bedroom to see if she's cheating on him. The contents of that camera become an running concern throughout the film, even in the middle of a crime investigation. It goes on and on, with Morgan carrying on lengthy dialogues about his wife and his feelings for her. Yet we are not really given any reason to care about their relationship, so why spend so much time on this? Almost every character in the film has this type of business going on, featured in protracted scenes that fail to build into a cohesive whole. Also, the central crime storyline is so silly and weightless that the tone of the movie becomes confusing. Despite the extensive gunplay and frequent shootings, the film plays almost as if it was supposed to be a joke, rather than a serious crime story played with laughs. Imagine if Beverly Hills Cop had been about Axel Foley trying to retrieve an antique lighter from a mobster - that is the level of story we're dealing with here, and it sucks. To make matters worse, the script basically hands the entire investigation over to the two policemen in huge chunks without even the slightest hint of clever detective work. For instance, the two cops stop a car thief in order to find out a vital clue; for laughs, the thief is an eleven year old boy, who then blurts out the name and whereabouts of the villain. It's sloppy and extremely lazy screenwriting. But "lazy" is the best term to describe Smith's entire film catalog, and his direction here does not change that impression. Dialogue scenes are simply multiple camera set-ups edited together without rhythm, ping-ponging back and forth like the most robotic tennis match in history. Then Smith employs shaky-cam for "action" scenes, proving that he's much better off setting his camera on a very rigid tripod. The editing in these scenes feels a little more dynamic, especially in a car chase at the halfway point that contained some nice shots. But these brief moments barely punctuate the blandly static scenes that never achieve life. What a shame that Morgan, who has been criminally underused for a decade, couldn't have found a more appropriate project with which to launch a much-deserved film career. Both Morgan and Willis put in fine work, all in a lost cause. This is simply another waste of time and talent from Smith.