RATING: 0.5/5
Dim-witted. No, make that beyond dim-witted. That's pretty much sum up for this awfully lame action comedy, COP OUT. It's also the movie where director Kevin Smith made his first major studio release that he didn't write the screenplay for, and he's truly embarrassed himself here. It's like as if he's totally sold off his soul for the sake of big fat paycheck (in which he himself claimed via Twitter that he took an 80-percent pay cut on this), simply made a crap and call it a day.
In the meantime, the movie tries hard to be both a tribute and a parody of the buddy-cop genre made popular by 48 HRS, BEVERLY HILLS COP and LETHAL WEAPON -- which is in turn a plot filled with sheer stupidity. The story goes like thjs: Odd-couple NYPD partners Jimmy (Bruce Willis) and Paul (Tracy Morgan) have been working together for nine years long. And their long-time partnership has quickly become a laughing stock when they botched up their assignment for catching a dangerous Latino gang member named Juan (Cory Fernandez). Not only that, they also get suspended without pay for 30 days. Because of their reckless behaviors, Jimmy is now having trouble trying to come up a lavish $48,000 worth of wedding ceremony for his daughter Ava (Michelle Trachtenberg). He doesn't want financial help from his ex-wife's wealthy new husband (Jason Lee) and he promises Ava to give the dream wedding she wants no matter what. So the only choice he's got is to sell off his precious Andy Rafko baseball card to earn enough money. Unfortunately he got unlucky when a pair of small-time crooks, lead by Dave (Seann William Scott) robs the baseball memorabilia store where Jimmy wants to sell off his card. Although Jimmy and Paul are not officially cops at the time being, that still doesn't stop them to pursue the stolen card back. However, they are chasing back more than just a stolen card -- which also include something about a missing Mercedes, and a Spanish-speaking beauty (Ana de la Reguera) and of course, getting themselves into big trouble with a notorious Latino gang, lead by Poh Boy (Guillermo Diaz). Oh, wait, there's further more -- various subplots involving Paul's beautiful wife, Debbie (Rashida Jones) who might be cheating on him with the neighbor; two pain-in-the-ass cops (Adam Brody, Kevin Pollak) and of course the antics of that small-time crook Dave who loves to piss people off. Bla bla bla...
No doubt that Mark Cullen and Robb Cullen's bloated screenplay is terribly sluggish, while the pace is lagging from the start. It's so obvious that the story here works more like a trashy collection of skits rather than a cohesive whole. What's even worst that the profanities-laden jokes are hardly funny at all.
And among the biggest blame of all, is Tracy Morgan himself. He's got to be the worst comedian I've ever seen in a long while. He really tries hard to be funny and charming at the same time, but he is so pathetic that his so-called antics about those involving "homage" and quoting popular movies are just plain boring. Speaking of boring, Bruce Willis is a snore. Not only he's embarrassed himself trying to be funny as well, his regular cop-with-an-attitude role is surprisingly lackluster.
In terms of action, Kevin Smith isn't particularly a technically-accomplished filmmaker who knows how to fire up at least an exciting set-piece. All those obligatory shootout and car chase are orchestrated in the utmost pedestrian way imaginable, and clearly he's making almost zero effort here.
What an embarrassing piece of trash.