Cop Out directed by Kevin Smith

When I saw Cop Out in the theatres I was terribly disappointed. Now after watching Kevin Smith's first eight films, I thought to myself 'maybe Cop Out will be better than I remember it'. After all, I did like Dogma more so than I did the first time. So after watching it again I can tell you that it did not improve and was still the dull, boring, painfully unfunny and terribly directed movie that I remember seeing those many months ago.

What went wrong with Cop Out. It was directed by Smith, who usually does, if not a great job, a passable job and it stars Bruce Willis and Tracey Morgan as cops trying to bust a drug kingpin. This premise and talent alone should of made for a half decent movie, but instead we are left with nothing more than bad humour, bad acting and terrible directing.

Let's start with the script. For the first time Smith has directed a film not written by himself and what a lame script he has chosen to do. The humour that is ever so present in his previous films has disappeared. Instead we get lame jokes, bad mugging for the camera and a barrage of unfunny material that actually thinks it's funny. Tracey Morgan, in 107 minutes is maybe funny in five.  The only funny character and funny moments come from Sean William Scott, who is only in the film for maybe ten minutes and even then they aren't laugh out loud funny. Mallrats, although not a great film, was at least hilarious. The story itself is fairly weak and for a buddy cop movie, it's fairly light on action and humour and it doesn't delve into any areas we haven't seen before. It's predictable and juvenile, it's full of plot holes, and it's got a rather lame ending that doesn't deliver on what comes before.

The actors in this film you would hope would deliver but they don't.Willis is tame and basically phones in his performance and Morgan gives a performance that will keep him on the small screen rather than the silver screen for years to come.  Populated with mostly TV stars in supporting roles the film feels like a TV movie. And why hire Kevin Pollack in a comedy if he's not going to make jokes? What's the point in that.

But the worst thing about Cop Out, worse than the acting and worse than the script and worse than the music which sounds like a cheap knock off of the Beverly Hills Cop theme, is the direction. Smith, who I never felt was a great director is done an absolutely terrible job here. Most scenes aren't put together well and there are some scenes, like the interrogation scene, that feel like each actor was filmed at different times and then hastily edited together. And the action scenes, especially the car chase are some of the most poorly filmed and boring action scenes I have ever laid eyes on.  Smith is no action director, and apparently, if he doesn't write the script he is no director at all.


Film Rating: 44%

Breakdown (How Cop Out scored 44%):

Production Design: 6 out of 10
Cinematography: 5 out of 10
Re-playability: 3 out of 10

Originality: 5 out of 10
Costumes: 6 out of 10

Directing: 4 out of 10

Editing: 4 out of 10

Acting: 5 out of 10
Music: 3 out of 10
Script: 3 out of 10