COP OUT (USA 2010) **
Directed by Kevin Smith

COP OUT is a cop buddy (Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan) movie in which each cop attends his own problem (one has a daughter about to be married and the other a supposedly unfaithful wife) while solving a crime (a stolen booty-stacked car).

It all begins when veteran NYPD cop Jimmie Munroe’s (Willis) rare baseball card is stolen. His partner, Paul Hodges (Tracy Morgan) helps trace the memorabilia-obsessed hood down while solving a bigger crime.  Subplots in the film involve them suspended from the force (not that anyone really cares or even remembers) while they go about their duties saving the day.

A sort of tribute to the 80’s cop buddy films like 48 HRS., COP OUT is loosely structured with lots of improvised comedy.  Think unfunny extended skits of Saturday Night Live!  The first segment has Morgan using lines from old movies in his suspect interrogation.  Not only is the segment unfunny, pointless and boring, most of the lines cannot be remembered or distinguished from one film or another – so much so that the camera has to inter-cut to Willis mentioning the name of each movie as the lines are quoted.  A very sorry state for the start of a movie that actually gets worse and worse as narrative, acting and order falls apart.

The only question is what happened here?  Is this the same Kevin Smith, who directed one of the wickedest comedies DOGMA ever made?  Only Kevin Smith might explain, if he can get on a plane to explain to his audiences.