Kevin Smith once lounged on a couch as if I were his shrink, confessing that, before our interview, he'd been up all night having sex with his wife. I hope he had the same kind of fun while making this film, since that might explain why his directing is so spent.
Directing, of course, has never been Smith's strong suit; it's his writing that's earned him his small but loyal following. Unfortunately, he didn't write Cop Out — and given the semi-improvised mess on screen, I'm not convinced anyone else did.
Bruce Willis barely earns one paycheck and Tracy Morgan overacts enough to earn two as "a couple of dicks" (Cop Out's original title), Monroe and Hodges of the NYPD. Conceived as an unironic '80s-era throwback (complete with a synthesizer score by Beverly Hills Cop's Harold Faltermeyer), the movie finds the two searching for a stolen . . . baseball card. Cop out? More like a strike out.
