Cop Out

Posted on July 20, 2010 at 7:50 am

If you have some affection for the 1980’s-era buddy cop movies (the “Lethal Weapon” series, “Running Scared,” “48 Hours,” etc.), rent one of those. Don’t try to re-create the genre by seeing Kevin Smith’s tired re-tread, “Cop Out,” starring Bruce Willis and Tracey Morgan. This is the first film Smith has directed without writing, and once again the suits got it backward. Kevin Smith can write, but he has never been much of a director. Remember his first film, “Clerks?” He basically set up the camera in one position and let the characters talk for 92 minutes. And it was that talk — the relishing of banality, the tsunami of TMI — that made the movie successful.
The check-list items are here. It begins with our not-so-lovably bickering heroes getting into trouble, being chewed out by a choleric police chief and dissed by a higher-ranking team (Kevin Pollack and Adam Brody). Denuded of guns and badges, they still have to figure out a way to save the day not just in locking up (or, mostly, shooting down) the bad guys but also in resolving their personal problems. Jimmy (Willis) has to figure out a way to pay for his daughter’s $50,000 wedding and Paul (Morgan) is hyper-jealous and has installed a nanny-cam in a teddy bear to find out whether his pretty wife (Rashida Jones) is cheating on him. Of course they run into an obnoxious small-time crook who will help them catch the bigger crooks (the Joe Pesci role — with a bit of Jason Mewes — goes to Seann William Scott). They are constantly nattering at each other but always having each other’s backs. And they mess everything up, in many different locations, until they don’t.
On the meandering way to the conclusion, we also see ambitious Mexican drug-dealers, a foul-mouthed kid, a valuable collectible, and a beautiful woman who has been in the trunk of a car for two days, as she repeatedly reminds everyone.
Willis looks like he is just running out the clock until his next project. Morgan and Scott try their best to stay afloat and there are some inspired improvisational riffs, but the script and direction keep getting in their way. The bad guys don’t do much but squint and call everyone “homes” all the time. Smith brought in Harold Faltermeyer, composer of the unforgettable “Beverly Hills Cop” soundtrack (he also provided the music for “Fletch” and “Top Gun”), occasionally amusing but mostly just pointlessly retro. And the movie perpetuates the least appealing element of its predecessors by giving its female characters nothing to do. Michelle Trachtenberg looks goth-pale and scary-thin as Jimmy’s daughter, Jones feeds Morgan straight lines and looks very pretty as Paul’s wife, and Ana de la Reguera is stuck in a typical spitfire (with real spit) role. Only Susie Essman (“Curb Your Enthusiasm”) is able to make the most of her brief appearance as a pistol-packing homeowner.
Smith, smarting after a couple of failures, decided to play safe with a studio movie when what he needs to be doing is to stop putting all of his creative energy into funny tweets and go back to writing scripts with heart and humor and memorable characters. Anything else is a cop out.

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Action/Adventure Comedy

Is it All Right for Children to Use Bad Words On Screen?

Posted on March 2, 2010 at 3:59 pm

As I have already discussed, the red-band (mature material) trailer for the upcoming film “Kick-Ass” has an 11-year-old character played by a now-13-year-old girl using extremely crude language. The New York Times article focused on the accessibility of the trailer online, though it is supposed to be limited to adult audiences. But there is another aspect I’d like to look at as well. This movie is the third in recent months to feature a child using very crude or obscene language as a source of humor or as a signifier of coolness. I think it is because we are now numb to the shock value of even the strongest language used by adults, so all that is left is to have those words said by children.
In Cop Out a child who is referred to as the top local car thief uses a string of obscene epithets, kicks another character in the crotch, and then is himself kicked in the crotch. Bobb’e J. Thompson, now 13, has pretty much made a career of being the outrageous kid in movies like the 2008 release Role Models, where his character’s extreme and raunchy language is supposed to be funny.
We have a lot of rules to protect child performers. Their work hours are limited and the production is responsible for making sure they do not miss schoolwork. Their earnings are set aside so they cannot be appropriated by managers or family members. I do not want to impinge on anyone’s freedom of expression or artistic integrity, but I do not think that is what is at stake here. This is just exploitation of children who are not capable of protecting themselves. If an adult approached a child in the playground and used that language, he’d be arrested as a sexual predator. Is it really all right for us to allow children to use that language in a movie?

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