Dos inútiles en patrulla

Boy this is a hard review to write! Wish I could avoid it, but that'd be a Cop Out, too! I thought Bruce could do no wrong, after ignoring The Bonfire of the Vanities, Hudson Hawk, and Death Becomes Her and his renewed persona in Pulp Fiction. But alas along comes this...ummm....mess of a film!

Maybe I don't like Tracy's sense of humour. Or maybe I'm tired of the cliched pairings of the "smart" and "dumb" buddy cop in films like Starksy and Hutch, Leathal Weapon, Chips, Bad Boys, R. I. P. D., The Heat, Rush Hour, Bulletproof, Ride Along, 48 Hours, Tango & Cash, and so, so, so many more!!! It gets a LOT repetitive. Or maybe it was the thin-as-paper plot!

Old cop needs money for his daughter's wedding because he doesn't want Jason Lee to pay for it, so he tries selling a valuable item only to be robbed by Stifler himself! Other cop has one liners and stupid faces. Chasing the crook they come across a Mexican cartel's snitch...bada-bing-bada-boo the good guys win by accident!

Still, it has Bruce Willis and Kevin Pollak in it!

After a clumsy operation trying to capture a drug dealer, the N.Y.P.D Detectives Jimmy Monroe (Bruce Willis) and Paul Hodges (Tracy Morgan) are suspended for one month by their Captain Romans (Sean Cullen). Jimmy decides to sell his rare baseball card to pay the expensive wedding of his daughter while his jealous partner believes that his wife is cheating him with their next-door neighbor. When Jimmy is selling his card to a memorabilia store, the place is stolen by two smalltime thieves and the detective loses his card. They track down the thieves and discover that he exchanged the card per drugs with the powerful drug lord Poh Boy (Guilermo Diaz). Jimmy and Paul seek out the gangster that proposes to trade the card per his car that had been carjacked. The detectives find the car but when they open the truck, they have a huge surprise.

"Cop Out" is a film that uses the old formula of combination of action and comedy that usually works. Kevin Smith is no longer that bold independent director from "Clerks" or "Chasing Amy" and follows the easy way of Hollywood making a conventional film, supported by the chemistry between Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan. The story is entertaining and predictable. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Tiras em Apuros" ("Cops in Trouble")

I guess you could call a few scenes mildly amusing but this movie never delivered any laugh out loud moments. It certainly never rings true as an action film. I don't know if they were mocking or paying homage to movies like Lethal Weapon and that's precisely the problem. Bruce Willis was solid but Tracy Morgan was severely out of place. While I find Morgan funny, his act wears thin fast. Also, Kevin Smith experimenting with the hand-held shaky camera craze has to be considered a colossal failure. Maybe it wasn't even intentional but I had to look away from the screen on some simple shots because of the motion. What was he thinking? Doesn't anyone screen the final cut and let him know what was wrong?

'Cop Out' is perhaps Kevin Smith's most 'un-Kevin Smith' film. It lacks the brand of humour his previous works had. Even though he has made his share of bad films next to a few great ones, the jokes usually work. In 'Cop Out' most of them fall flat. The story (if there is one) has no direction at all. The characters are annoying. Supporting characters appear and disappear randomly. In Smith's defence, he wasn't part of the writing department (though he was involved in the editing) and the script is just one big mess. I still wonder why he decided to make this? Even the actors seem to lack interest. Tracy Morgan is completely miscast and he has no chemistry with any of his costars. Actually none of the actors have chemistry. Bruce Willis too is unimpressive. Perhaps he's finally tired of playing the same kind of role over and over again. The title is somewhat right for the movie although I don't think it ever had potential.

There are so many films within this genre, plus a whole host on TV, that the risk of making it is that we have all seen it before. There is inevitably a touch of that in this film, but it does have some solid acting by all the main characters to give it some impetus at crucial times.

Cop Bruce Willis must raise face saving money for his daughter's wedding and he has worked out a legal way of doing so. From there we have a carefully interwoven sequence of events that lead us through the story to an ending not quite what you may expect.

It is enjoyable, funny in places, doesn't take itself too seriously, and whisks you through a couple of hours. Not everyone's cup of tea given the competition but still an okay film. Six out of ten.