DVD Cop Out

What was Kevin Smith thinking? An audacious critic of society and film in particular, and no stranger to poking fun at himself I can foresee, a few years down the road, a sheepish Smith laughing off his involvement in this torturously unfunny genre film. What he may lack in compelling direction skills, he more than makes up for in witty screenplays with equal balance raunch and insight having crafted classics such as Clerks and Chasing Amy. With Smith absent from the writing role there is absolutely no reason to seek out Cop Out.

Calling Cop Out a 'buddy cop' film would be a gross misnomer. To qualify as such, we would actually have to witness some aspect of 'buddy'. Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan, who co-star, have absolutely no chemistry and I did not believe for a single second they would ever be friends, or even be able to tolerate one another for that matter. Furthermore, I did not believe for a single second that Tracy Morgan could ever be a cop. I am willing to suspend some disbelief in movies like this but c'mon. This role would have been kin to casting Betty White in Taken. Morgan is a very funny man in supporting situations, with 30 Rock being an apt example (Although that show benefits from Tina Fey's screenplay. If she had penned Cop Out this review could be reading far differently) but as with actors like Chris Rock and Chris Tucker, a little goes a long way.

Then we have Bruce Willis who just seems eager to leave. I have never seen Willis mope his way through a movie like this; all of his roguish charms seemed drained by the horrific writing and familiarity of the gags. To make matter worse yet, we get a horrendous performance from Sean William Scott, also a very funny man, whose character is as annoying as it is perfunctory. Many have been calling this a familiar rehash of buddy cop flicks of years past; I wish. I would have begged for a Beverly Hills Cop XXII over this near abomination.

The plot, in case you care, centers on Willis' and Morgan's Jimmie and Paul, two NYPD detectives who stumble into a drug ring after Jimmie's prized baseball card is stolen in front of his eyes during a robbery. He needs the card to pay for his daughters wedding and as he searches with the help of the criminal by which it was stolen (William Scott) uncovers more than he had in mind.

In summation, this film fails as a comedy, fails as an action film, fails as a breakout role for Tracy Morgan, fails as a return to the cop genre for Willis and mars Kevin's Smith's mostly unblemished track record. Originally titled A Couple of Dicks, the title was then changed to what you now see on the marquee. I can only assume this was a backhanded reference to the state of Smith's creative integrity.

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This is supposed to be a comedy, allegedly. I only know that because it's advertised as a comedy, though – you certainly wouldn't know because of any funny moments in the film. It's a buddy cop movie, where Bruce Willis looks as though he's overdosed on Valium and Tracy Morgan makes up for that by doing what I can only describe as a minstrel show routine.

I don't want to get on my high horse about what's supposed to be a light-hearted action cop movie, but then again I didn't want to get angry after a light-hearted action cop movie, either. Angry about Morgan's performance, a gibbering, cavorting, screeching act that wouldn't have been out of place in the days of Stepin Fetchit. Angry about the fact that no one involved seemed to give a toss – in fact they might as well have spent the whole movie just standing there, holding up two middle fingers at the audience.

But I'm angry most of all at Kevin Smith, the director of this piece of utter garbage. He used to be talented. He used to make great movies like Clerks, Dogma, even Mallrats. Yeah, that's right, I'm the guy who liked Mallrats. These days he churns out lazy rubbish and then goes on Twitter and whines at anyone who dares to criticise it. He's thrown his talent away, and he's so wrapped up in the bubble of his own self-importance that he doesn't seem to realise it. By making a film like this, and clearly not caring at all about how it turned out, he's shown his complete contempt for movie-goers, fans and the smoking wreckage of his own career. Well done, Kevin. Well done.