Cop Out

Tracy Morgan is not acting. Ever. He believes the crazy things
that he says.

"Rock Out with your Glock Out."

Hey everybody, today as promised I'll be relapsing into old habits, and talking about Cop Out, a buddy cop parody with Bruce Willis, starring opposite Tracy Morgan. I'll also be continuing a yarn from an earlier post, when I talk about what a piece of shit I think Mark Wahlberg is. First let's talk about Cop Out though. Released in early 2010, Cop Out features Tracy Morgan and Bruce Willis as long time partners Paul and Jimmy, suspended after failing to capture a suspect and causing a neighborhood shootout, culminating in them beating a kid up. Wanting to pay for his daughter's wedding so as to not be shown up by his ex-wife's new husband (played by Jason Lee) Jimmy tries to sell an extremely valuable baseball card, but it is stolen in the process (by Sean William Scott). Paul and Jimmy attempt to recover it, leading them on a winding path that isn't remotely important to your enjoyment of the movie. The plot is supposed to be silly and pointless, parodying the types of cop action movies that Willis himself frequently acted in in the past. This didn't fly with critics too well though, who found the movie 'desperate for laughs' with 'cliched, stale gags, and slack pacing'.

I don't remember this part of Dude Where's My Car.

This is again another instance of me feeling like I wasn't watching the same movie as the critics reviewing it. Cop Out was not the cleverest movie I ever saw, but I thought it was genuinely funny. While I have never found any character Sean William Scott played remotely funny (just really annoying) the combination of Bruce Willis' deadpan delivery and Tracy Morgan's... being himself make for excellent comedic timing. I also enjoy a movie that really is just about something really petty and pointless, but that all the characters take totally seriously. That is definitely this movie up and down. This is a matter of taste, so it's certainly possible that you'll agree with the reviews and find this movie unfunny, but I think it's worth the watch.

Id like to tell you I can explain this but I can't.

One of the things reviewers liked to complain about was how much worse Cop Out was than The Other Guys, a buddy cop parody that came out later the same year, starring Mark Wahlberg and Will Ferrell. While I really enjoy most Will Ferrell movies, and certainly the other three movies he starred in directed by Adam McKay (those were Anchorman, Talladega Nights and Step Brothers if you're wondering) I just didn't think The Other Guys was that funny. This is almost certainly because of Marky Mark. I know that in my review of The Postman I said that you shouldn't let the actors real reputation get in the way of enjoying movies, but the line for me is drawn at huge racists who also are criminals. For those who don't know, before he was famous Mark Wahlberg was in a street gang in Boston, and among his many other infractions, he beat a Vietnamese man savagely while shouting racial epithets at him, blinding him permanently in one eye. An old Vietnamese man. Wahlberg has gone on record as saying he is no longer burdened by guilt for the things he has done. Good for you Mark, but I still think you're a piece of trash. Even barring that, I just don't find him remotely funny. I guess Max Payne was so bad it was sort of funny but I'm pretty sure he wasn't trying there. I also really can't stand the stance so many reviewers seem to take, where if two similar movies come out around the same time, one has to be good, and the other has to be bad. There isn't limited space for good movies guys, they can both be good.

This looks like a romantic evening on the beach.

The directorship of Cop Out seemed to draw it a lot of heat too. Cop Out was directed by Kevin Smith, though it is the only movie he directed that he did not write the screenplay for. Kevin Smith has developed a relationship for being a complete dickbag on Twitter and making a general ass out of himself on the internet, and like so many other things that colors his projects negatively. In the case of Cop Out, Smith complained about working with Bruce Willis, stating that while he'd been excited to work with him, that he'd been really disappointed with his aloof attitude. At the same time, a lot of others on working on the project complained that Smith was extremely non-interactive on set, and also that he smoked massive amounts of weed. Smith has stated on the record that he subscribes to Seth Rogan's school of toke while you work, and he seems adamant that when he's smokin' weed he is super productive. I don't know about you, but that is the least likely load of bullshit I have ever heard. While I love almost the entirety of Kevin Smith's filmography, I again think that he is a piece of trash, and that he would have a lot less trouble if he didn't work so hard to make an ass of himself. But he doesn't have a police record for being a racist or beating old men so I still like movies. See the difference?

Anyone who doesn't like Cop Out is a racist. Yeah I went there.

Even though it received generally negative reviews, Cop Out did okay in the box office, Opening at #2 behind Shutter Island it netted a total of 55 million against its 37 million budget, so it at least did a little better than breaking even. It also enjoyed very prolific DVD and Blu-Ray sales, being the top title sold in the month it was released.  The bottom line is that I found this movie to be very funny (I actually laughed out loud in the theater several times) and I think it's worth checking out on DVD if nothing else.

That's it for today! Join me on Thursday when we journey into the wasteland left behind by the destruction of civilization, in another post-apocalyptic film!