Cop Out (2010)

COP OUT (2010).
Directed by Kevin Smith. Written by Robb Cullen, and Mark Cullen. Starring Bruce Willis, Tracy Morgan, Guillermo Diaz, Kevin Pollack, Adam Brody, Michelle Trachtenberg, Jason Lee, Rashida Jones, Seann William Scott, Ana De La Reguera, and Juan Carlos Hernandez.

Ooh, a tribute to 80s buddy-cop movies! Ooh, Bruce Willis! Guillermo Diaz as the bad guy! Directed by Kevin Smith!

Oh, but Smith didn't write it. Hmmm. And Tracy Morgan? He reminds me of Bernie Mac - he's not as funny as he thinks he is, nor as someone somewhere thinks, and he seems like he's always reading his lines, they don't come out instinctively. And Kevin Pollack - this guy still makes movies? We're a long way past The Usual Suspects now... if it wasn't for Willis and his hitman comedies, I think everything he makes now would be direct-to-DVD. Still, let's give it a try...

Plot: a down-on-his-luck cop with an idiot for a partner needs to sell his prized baseball card to not suffer the embarrassment of having his ex-wife's new husband pay for his daughter's wedding. But the card gets stolen. And by attempting to recover it, the cop kind of starts a war with drug (and human) traffickers.

Oh, boy.

It starts off fine, with Tracy Morgan quoting what seems like 100 different Hollywood movies in 90 seconds, almost overshadowing Bruce Willis, but it doesn't stick. Furthermore, as the film moves along, this supposedly film buff stops quoting films altogether, even when it'd be obvious to, as when he and Willis are in a car (sitting in front) with Seann William Scott in the back seat, and Morgan's wielding a gun and waving it everywhere, reminiscent of the ''dead nigger'' scene in Pulp Fiction. But no.

And it seems like every ten minutes, the movie becomes less and less realistic, as if it started as a tribute to the Lethal Weapon series but delved more and more into the parody realm. Guillermo Diaz is convincing as the menacing villain, although his role is pretty much identical to the one he plays in Weeds.

This isn't a bad film by any stretch of the imagination - it just isn't very good, either. So Smith's talent is wasted, as is Diaz'. And Willis', but that isn't a first. And to think Robin Williams and James Gandolfini were originally slated to star in this... now that would have been a piece of crap! For pop culture junkies, the first 15 minutes of the film are a delight, for ''Willis will save us one at a time'' fans, this could also prove satisfying. For a stupid good time, if all your other choices are not available to rent, this might be a decent choice. This will probably get some undeserved Razzie nominations, but big stars like Willis are used to this by now.

3/5

First Sunday (2008)

I figured we might as well start with a bang... a film I saw a couple of weeks ago...

FIRST SUNDAY (2008).
Directed by David E. Talbert. Written by David E. Talbert. Starring Ice Cube, Katt Williams, Tracy Morgan, Loretta Devine, Regina Hall, Keith David, Chi McBride, and Malinda Williams.

Plot: two low-life best friends, one a petty criminal and the other a struggling father, must find thousands of dollars to escape their fates and choose to rob a church, where they will inevitably learn from their mistakes and become better people.

Alright, people, let's get this straight: we're late in the first decade of the 21st century. Films have been around for over 100 years, and American comedies have become the world-wide go-to standards of excellence (or respectability, at least) since the 1940s, be it in TV sitcoms or in film.

The loser-finds-faith-and-turns-into-a-winner schtick is getting old fast, and every film that continues trying to tell that same old story over the course of two hours is going to bore the audience to tears. Or sleep. And when you have top-notch comedic talent like Ice Cube, Katt Williams and Tracy Morgan in your cast, that is a crime that just shouldn't be allowed to happen.

Writer/director David E. Talbert should have taken a cue from the best comedies of the past decade (Zoolander, Old School) and gotten rid of the whole plot in the first 10 or 15 minutes of the film and let the comics handle the rest; instead, Williams is relegated to crap one-liners once every 10 minutes, Cube plays it straight and Morgan is nothing more than a bumbling sidekick - none were given enough direction to make the film reach laugh-out-loud funniness, nor were they given dialogue to help them over-ride the story lines to bring it to Funnyland.

In the end, we're left with a below-average feel-good movie that could/should have been one of the funniest films of the year.

2.5/5