Cop Out

Cop Out is director Kevin Smith's 9th film. It's also the first one that he didn't write. Since his writing has always been his strong point, I was a bit leery going into this one. I'd seen the original trailer and it didn't do much for me. Then, a month or so later, the red-band trailer debuted online. Now that sold me on the movie. It made it look like it was going to be hysterical. So, was it? I'll get to that momentarily.

Cop Out is the story of police officers Jimmy Monroe and Paul Hodges. A sting operation goes horribly wrong leading them to be suspended for 30 days without pay. In order to supplement his income and pay for his daughter's upcoming wedding, Jimmy decides to sell an extremely rare baseball card. While at the hobby shop, the place gets robbed and his card is stolen. The rest of the movie involves Monroe and Hodges attempting to get the card back and right the wrongs from their failed bust earlier.

The story here is decent. It's intended as an homage to 80s buddy flicks like 48 Hours and Lethal Weapon. And on that level, it works pretty well. Smith even goes so far as to pepper the soundtrack with 80s songs and a score from composer Harold Faltermeyer. The problem is that the movie just isn't as funny as I was hoping it'd be. It did get some laughs out of me but not like the laughs I typically get from Smith's movies. Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan are the leads with supporting turns from Kevin Pollak, Adam Brody, Seann William Scott, Rashida Jones and Guillermo Diaz. Everyone is good here with Scott and Diaz being the most interesting characters of the bunch.

In a bit of trivia, Cop Out has netted Kevin Smith the biggest opening weekend of his career, taking in roughly $18 million. If the movie can perform well for a few more weeks, it stands a chance to top the $31 million plateau that none of his movies have been able to do.

Cop Out winds up being a pretty decent movie that could have been a lot better if Smith had been the wordsmith. I actually wouldn't mind a sequel to this written by him.