Rounding down the usual suspects
Tracy Morgan, left, and Bruce Willis go through the comic buddy-cop motions.
(Warner Bros.)
Cop Out
Running time: 113 minutes
MPAA rating: R (harsh profanity, extreme violence, adult situations)
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"Cop Out" is just that, a lazy, clichéd excuse for a buddy cop action comic-drama.
Bruce Willis and TV comedian Tracy Morgan are the unfortunate actors out front.
I was the unfortunate film critic sitting in the dark wondering why time was standing still.
The only thing that kept my mind occupied (a little) was wondering how much longer director Kevin Smith can ride his "Clerks" success.
Willis (the "Die Hard" franchise), a talented big-screen vet who should know better, and Morgan play -- sort of -- Brooklyn cops with pressing agendas not necessarily related to police work.
Paul (Morgan) is convinced that his wife Debbie (Rashida Jones of "Parks and Recreation" on TV) is cheating on him. Jimmy (Willis) needs to somehow come up with almost 50,000 bucks to pay for his daughter's wedding.
In between, screenwriting brothers Robb and Mark Cullen (TV writer-producers trying the big screen) send the 21st century Keystone Kops on a quest to reclaim a rare 1952 baseball card. Ho-hum.
Along the way they'll rescue the ingénue, befriend a likable cat burglar (talented Seann William Scott) and, if you're like me, make you ponder why you're in the theater for this piece of buddy-cop toxic topic waste.
Smith has made a couple of interesting films since "Clerks," his only real knockout, of 1994. The fact that Hollywood continues to green-light projects with the creative free spirit in the director's chair shows faith, if not dogma.
"Cop Out" has no chance to become anything more than a cliché of successful buddy-cop comedies like the "Lethal Weapon" franchise featuring Mel Gibson and Danny Glover.
Willis and Morgan are no Gibson and Glover, although they aren't given much of a chance to really give it a comic-action go.
The film's opening scene, an embarrassingly lame affair where Morgan chants movie cop lines while overplaying the interrogation of a suspect, arrests any real forward comic movement before "Cop Out" gets out of the opening blocks.
If I've seen a less entertaining buddy cop comedy, I've buried it so deep in my subconscious I can no longer retrieve it.
Sorry, "Cop Out." Looks like you're it.
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