Cop Out Grade: D
By BEN SCHWARTZ
When one hears that Kevin Smith, the director of “Clerks,” “Mallrats” and “Dogma,” is coming out with another movie, it’s hard not to brim with excitement. Until you remember that this is also the man who directed “Clerks II” and “Jersey Girl.” That’s when it’s hard not to get nervous.
Kevin Smith’s new movie, “Cop Out,” starring Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan, is more in the vein of those last two miserable, unfunny train wrecks than of his earlier opuses. Even the title is a bad joke. Early reviews said that it’s just like every other cop movie ever made, except worse. This perfectly pithy assessment renders the rest of this reviews redundant.
For a few minutes at the beginning, you can feel your initial optimism returning. The movie opens with the Beastie Boys’ “No Sleep Till Brooklyn” pulsing through the speakers. No song puts you more in the mood to watch a Kevin Smith movie. Like Smith, the song has a non-traditional sense of New York cool: brash, dirty, original and deliberately ugly. It’s the feel you get from people who grew up in the shadow of something glamorous and beautiful and who are never bored, because they can always fall back on their own mischievousness.
The movie opens with Paul Hodges (a zany, off-the-wall Tracy Morgan) interrogating a prisoner, watched by his partner (a stoic, yet inwardly emotional Bruce Willis) Jimmy Monroe. You can suspect from the first few minutes that you’ll be watching the same joke replayed for almost two hours: Tracy Morgan does something that people expect from Tracy Morgan, and Bruce Willis does something people expect from Bruce Willis. Watching them interact might seem funny to you now, but wait until you’re 45 minutes into “Cop Out” and you’ve been listening to Morgan’s absurd drivel and watching Willis’ knowing sneer for about as long as you can take and begin to realize that the popcorn has run out — and you’ve still got an hour left. It won’t be so funny anymore.
The typecasting extends beyond just Willis and Morgan. Seann William Scott and Susie Essman also appear in bit roles that might be funny if it was a different movie, playing basically every character they’ve ever played, and doing about as good a job as you would expect. But humor isn’t just a question of picking a few good pieces out of other movies and TV shows and throwing them together. It requires story and direction, two elements this movie seems to have forgotten. There is allegedly some sort of plot involving Mexican drug gangs, but the characters are so bad and the accents so thick that it’s not even worth going into. The same adage applies: they’re like all the other Mexican gangbangers you’ve seen in a movie, but worse — painfully worse.
While it’s painful to bash a genuinely good director like Smith, there are two mitigating factors that should make you feel less guilty. The first is that Smith did not write “Cop Out,” so with a few stretches of wishful thinking it can be banished from the Kevin Smith canon. The second is that Woody Allen made “Curse of the Jade Scorpion” and “Hollywood Ending;” in fact, he made them back-to-back, which is to say, even geniuses have their Hindenburgs. If you’re a Smith fan, just grit your teeth and force a smile through the seemingly unending 107 minutes of “Cop Out.” Or, better yet, just skip this one and wait for “Red State,” Smith’s new project that he’s actually writing and will likely be much more hilarious.
You can reach this writer at thescene@theeagleonline.com.
A LONG HISTORY By YOHANA DESTA
Thoughts of comedian Tracy Morgan bring to mind outrageous yelling, sloppy antics and a lot of bare belly shirt-raising. And that’s not just his schtick — it’s who the man is in real life. Tracy Morgan is one of those comedians that never really needs to get into character because he already is one. In a way, it’s what makes him unforgettable as a comedian. And lately, Morgan seems to be doing quite well for himself. This year he stars in the police comedy “Cop Out” alongside Hollywood heavyweight Bruce Willis.
Morgan’s career started off slowly with random appearances in small films and movies. For a while, he landed a recurring role on Martin Lawrence’s comedic sitcom, “Martin,” which gave him a chance to really get a foot in the industry. Aside from that, Morgan was still an up-and-coming stand-up comic, performing regularly for comedy clubs in Harlem. It was not until he auditioned for “Saturday Night Live” in 1996 that he really became famous.
For the next 10 years, Morgan was a part of television’s most famous sketch comedy show. Playing characters like Uncle Jemima (which is exactly what you think it would be), Dominican Lou and African Andy, Morgan got laughs for his outrageously rude and over-the-top characterizations. These days, Morgan perfects his exaggerated character on the hilarious creation of Tina Fey, “30 Rock,” as a comedian named Tracy Jordan.
Morgan currently stars in “Cop Out” as Paul Hodges, the bumbling partner to seasoned NYPD cop Jimmy Monroe (Bruce Willis). Once a rare baseball card is stolen, pandemonium ensues and Willis and Morgan’s characters go on a chase to find it. Also in the film is longtime actor Michelle Trachtenberg, playing Ava, Monroe’s daughter. Seasoned comedian Seann William Scott plays Dave, another cop that adds to the bumbling brand of comedy the film is sure to provide.
While this is not the first time Willis has played a cop (the “Die Hard” trilogy, “Sin City”), it’s one of the first times he’s acted in an obvious comedic parody film. Willis has a natural comedic sensibility, often adding a smirking and sarcastic quality to his characters. Aside from his early brawn, it’s that certain quality that has made Willis one of Hollywood’s most famous leading men.
Willis’ films have grossed billions of dollars worldwide. The “Die Hard” trilogy itself has grossed over a billion dollars and made Willis famous worldwide. But before he became a blockbuster megastar, Willis held a number of jobs. He started off as a security guard, putting his soon-to-be-famous muscle to good use. After that, there was a period where he was a private investigator (which he later played in “The Last Boy Scout”) before he eventually went back to being a bartender in New York City. It was not until he started acting in off-Broadway plays that he actually got picked up to be in a television series —the infamous “Moonlighting,” where he acted opposite Cybil Shepherd.
What followed were the first and second “Die Hard” films, solidifying Willis’ status as a hard core actor and action hero. Willis’ next major role was in 1994’s “Pulp Fiction,” arguably one of Quentin Tarantino’s best films. Willis played Butch Coolidge, and though it was not a major role, it was critical to the film and earned him accolades for his serious acting chops, since many of his other films had been flops until that point. But you can’t talk about Bruce Willis’ career without mentioning 1999’s “The Sixth Sense.” The M. Night Shyamalan thriller was nominated for six Oscars, had a creepy and shocking plot and spawned the now-overused saying, “I see dead people.” Willis played Dr. Malcom Crowe, a psychologist who deals with the supernatural problems of a troubled little boy. The film is a thriller at its finest and forever made Willis a Hollywood icon.
With the release of “Cop Out,” Willis and Morgan are now joined together to make an unlikely but comedic duo, and it’ll be interesting to see what the two bring to the table. The film is currently out in theaters.
You can reach this staff writer at ydesta@theeagleonline.com.
