Walking out of Cop Out, I saw a woman who had one of the ‘reserved seats’ signs stuck on her back.  She did not know about it until she walked out of the theatre.  It was amusing, making me laugh more than the movie did.  It reminded me of the most basic principle of comedy: people trying to be funny are not, but people who act serious and fail (or in this case, do not know there is a sign stuck to their back) are.  It seems that no one had told this to Kevin Smith, or Tracy Morgan in particular.

The movie is as clichéd as one would think.  Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan star as Jimmy Monroe and Paul Hodges, two cops who screw up a badly executed drug bust in the beginning, and get suspended by their captain.  Monroe also has a daughter who is about to get married.  Since it is customary for a father to pay for his daughters wedding, he winds up with a $50,000 bill to pay.  The only choice he has left is to pawn an extremely rare baseball card, but then it is stolen by Dave (Sean William Scott, displaying an exellent talent for parkour that only a stunt double can do), who sells it for drugs from Poh Boy (Guillermo Diaz) who is seeking to expand his drug empire, etc.  Long story short, Monroe and Hodges get caught up in everything.

Aside from the uninspired plot, there was a lot of vulgar and crude comedy that Kevin Smith is known for, yet it did not really make the movie funny.  Smith has based most of his films around toilet humor that has now become old and stupid.  It just did not fit the tone of the film.  Hell, even the dramatic stuff did not fit in the movie.

There was also a bill of supporting characters that never really amounted to anything.  There was Kevin Pollack and Adam Brody, whose only purpose was to show how well liked Monroe and Hodges are as detectives.  Jason Lee is Monroe’s ex-wife’s new husband, who had nothing to do (surprisingly).  And Sean William Scott was a parkour thief who spent more time on the toilet than performing parkour (seriously).  Outside all of that, there was still Tracy Morgan, who out performed everyone, but in a bad way.  He was overacting to an extent I didn’t know possible.  Even Bruce Willis, who has done some comedy before, acted like he needed the money.

To sum up, this movie was not worth it.  Kevin Smith, even though he only directed this, is still making the same movie, sadly.  The jokes fell flat.  In fact, I do not really want to waste time writing how bad the movie was.  I would rather say how bad Tracy Morgan was.  For someone on a hit comedy T.V. show, he still needs a lot of work to be funny.  He tried way to hard, when all he needed to be was serious.  Acting ridiculous in a cell phone costume is not that funny, especially if he is stuck wearing it for longer than needed to.

Mel Gibson and Danny Glover set the bar real high for a buddy cop movie with Lethal Weapon, and I can understand that no movie can quite equal, or be nearly as good as that.  Rush Hour and 48 Hours, weren’t as good, but they were still well done and funny.  Cop Out was like a slap in the face and a kick in the groin rolled into one.

- Marco La Rocca