Cop Out
Well, here’s something I never really saw coming. In crafting his own throwback to the buddy movies of the ’80s (complete with songs and score by “Top Gun” and “Beverly Hills Cop” composer Harold Faltermeyer), raunch-master Kevin Smith has done something unexpected- directed a movie from someone else’s script.
The result is better than you think, and funnier than critics will let on. True, it’s more guilty pleasure than K Smith classic like “Chasing Amy,” “Dogma,” and the “Clerks” films, but even guilty pleasure Kevin Smith (think the much-maligned “Mallrats”) beats most other comedies at the multiplex.
Leading the way in front of the camera are Bruce Willis- whom Smith appeared onscreen with in “Live Free and Die Hard”- and Tracy Morgan (who was one of a gazillion cameos in “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back”) as NYPD cops Jimmy and Paul, who get caught up in a Mexican drug ring investigation when Jimmy is trying to sell a classic baseball card to pay for his daughter’s wedding when they’re put on suspension after a sting gone wrong.
If all you’ve seen of this movie is the green-band trailers and TV spots, you haven’t gotten a good feel for this flick. Trust me, you haven’t. Willis and Morgan are having a lot of fun, even if some jokes feel forced. Some of the gags are just too funny to give up in a review, except I’ll say that the supporting characters- from Sean William Scott’s petty thief to Adam Brody and Kevin Pollack’s odd-couple cops to Rashida Jones’ wife (to Paul) and Jason Lee as the snooty stepfather to Jimmy’s daughter Ava (Michelle Trachtenberg), well, each of them have some pretty great moments in this movie.
But the best surprise in this movie comes from Smith, who makes the script by Mark and Robb Cullen into his own, delivering on the film’s ’80s action vibe while also injecting it with his own brand of raunchy wit. The result is more entertaining than it has any right to be.
