Synopsis: Two longtime NYPD partners on the trail of a stolen, rare, mint-condition baseball card find themselves up against a merciless, memorabilia-obsessed gangster.  Jimmy (Bruce Willis) is the veteran detective whose missing collectible is his only hope to pay for his daughter’s upcoming wedding, and Paul (Tracy Morgan) is his “partner-against-crime” whose preoccupation with his wife’s alleged infidelity makes it hard for him to keep his eye on the ball.

COP OUT - - out of 5

Being a Kevin Smith fan, I like his background story of once being a comic book writer turned into hollywood movie director making huge flopped flicks that had a tremendous amount of cult followings. Yes, I have to admit that his movies have flopped, but he is a genius for the way he sets himself out to be. He had a certain style to his movies that critics and other hollywood movie buffs did not appreciate. But as time passed people found his films to be more and more tolerable, to the point where they understood the humor. It may have taken a while, but the people finally get it! From his early days with Mall Rats and Clerks to Dogma. To his most recent flop before Cop Out, Zack and Miri Make a Porno, which I must admit had no interesting points of the movie except maybe for the title and the talents (not acting) of Katie Morgan. But enough about Kevin Smith let’s go ahead and talk about the movie.

Cop Out is a buddy-buddy cop film set up in New York. Tracy Morgan and Bruce Willis star as partners of nine years in the NYPD facing off against some Latin Gangs. The movie sets up as they are trying to find a way to bust a Latin drug dealer, when things just go downhill for them from there. Bruce Willis’ character is an older, sad character who has lost his wife to a more successful man, and his daughter is about to get married. His character being full of pride wants to pay for the whole wedding but can’t afford to do so. So he turns to selling a mint-condition baseball card that could turn his life around. The card gets stolen, and the plot switches from going after the drug dealers to just finding this one card. Genius!! maybe? Tracy Morgan is his partner, who is a loud, happy go lucky, insecure man of a cop. He has trust issues, and seems to only be thinking about one thing the whole movie. He played his part well, however at times, seeming to just be trying to hard to steal the scene from bigger actors.

So the movie sets them up as two cops who just play by their own rules. I enjoyed sitting through this movie as I laughed my ass off at the sillyness and the smartness of the jokes. But to view this film as a movie, is just off topic. There were moments where it should have gotten serious, and stayed serious, but the jokes just kept on coming. I must say, that this film had so many plot twists and instability that could have been worked on. But the storyline was simple, easy to follow, often predictable at times. Sean William Scott’s character was hilarious by the way. The whole movie was just entirely jokes, some TV quality jokes, some not-so-funny but i chuckled a little jokes, and some were grade-A quality film jokes that, I don’t care who you are, it was hilarious.I enjoyed it for what it was.

Now for the technical aspect of the film. It was almost your typical formulated buddy cop movie. The script, which in my opinion, seemed invisible. The funny moments we saw in the trailers were replaced with similar scenes. The movie kept moving forward which was good, so it wasn’t so dull to think that the plot didn’t go anywhere. But by watching the film, you would think of how many takes it would have taken to do these scenes. All the ad libs that might have taken place. “I knit the sh!t out of a sweater!” (my favorite line of the film). It didn’t seem to be much of Kevin Smith’s style of comedy or film to me. There was no cleverness to the comedy as I would have expected from him. But the movie overall I found to be funny. Let’s just say a little over-the=top acting mixed with a bit of genius scriptwriting or ad-libbing  helped the film out a lot.

Kevin Pollack and Adam Brody are the supporting cast who are brown-nosing cops who play it by the book. The scenes between the two different partners were great as the jokes between the two played out just right. Sean William Scott was a great addition to the film, as he played a childish, talkative, parkouring thief who likes to play games. The film mainly focused on the two characters, as it should. Michelle Trachtenberg joins the cast as Bruce Willis’ daughter who we don’t get to see much in the film, but just enough to show that she’s there and that’s what he’s fighting for.

The soundtrack, a nostalgic trip back to the ’60s mixed with the few hip hop hits of the late ’90s and early ’00s. Which suits the film as both the tracks and the plot seem to go all over the place.

The film, goes from drug dealers, to baseball cards, to latin gangs, and makes a full circle back. This film was worth the money paid for going into the theater, it was a good 1 1/2 hour laughfest. If you get a chance to, go see it for yourself, but don’t come in expecting too much. Accept it for what it is, a jokeful buddy-buddy cop movie, with an unconventional formula.

Directed by: Kevin Smith
Written by: Robb and Mark Cullen

Release: February 26, 2010
MPAA: Rated R for pervasive language including sexual references, violence and brief sexuality
Runtime: 107 minutes

Starring:
Bruce Willis
Tracy Morgan
Sean WIlliam Scott
Adam Brody
Kevin Pollack
Juan Carlos Hernandez
Guillermo Diaz
Michelle Trachtenberg
Ana de la Reguera