Release Date – 2/26/10
Jimmy Monroe and Paul Hodges are cops that have been partners for 9 years. When a sting operation goes wrong they are suspended without pay. Monroe needs to find a way to pay for his daughter’s wedding so he attempts to sell a rare baseball card that he has been holding on to since he was a child. He is robbed while trying to sell it so he gets his partner to help track down the men responsible. This unravels links to the drug dealers originally being pursued. I know what the point of the movie was, basically an homage to buddy cop films of the 80s, but I was looking for more laughs from other people other than Tracy Morgan and the storyline was a little lacking.
Bruce Willis plays the badass side of the partners. He’s an older cop who isn’t afraid to get a little down and dirty. Tracy Morgan is his more sensitive partner whose attempts to be tough are quoting lines from cop movies. Willis is pretty good as he’s not a stranger to this type of role. The whole story with his daughter (small part by Michelle Trachtenberg) and her wedding is pretty silly. This is a plot point that could have been changed. I mean selling a baseball card to pay for a wedding is just a dumb movie idea. Tracy Morgan is the saving grace of this film because he is hysterical. Its nothing new in terms of acting for him but he’s just flat out funny. Everything he said had me laughing. Seann William Scott had a throw away role as an annoying criminal. Kevin Pollak and Adam Brody are another set of partners on the force. Here is another way they paid homage to older buddy cop movies. There’s always the other set of partners that poke fun at the main characters when they screw up. So I kind of liked what they did there. Besides some musical choices, I could have used more of those aspects. Guillermo Diaz (Half Baked) was the bad guy, a baseball memorabilia obsessed drug dealer. So you see how the baseball card story gets linked in. Its still dumb.
The movie was the first big budget project from Kevin Smith (Clerks, Mallrats). Its also the first time he directed based on a script that wasn’t his own. I think he should stick to working with his own material. Small budgets and his own sense of humor seem to fit him better. This is definitely low on my list of Kevin Smith projects. It’s a funny movie but its nothing to rant and rave about. A good amount of action but not a good enough mixture with the comedy. Bad Boys is an action movie with laughs. Cop Out is a comedy movie with some action. And I think the point was to almost spoof movies like Bad Boys but the spoof aspects were too few and far between. I’m positive that my rating would have been lower had Tracy Morgan not been a part of this. I would recommend seeing it if you love his style of humor. If you’ve ever seen him in…. anything then you’ll be pleasantly surprised that he’s the same as he always is.
IMDB – 6.8/10
Rotten Tomatoes – 20%
Movie Wiseguys – 6.5/10