Let's
Be Cops
The movie inspired me to be a cop in my own right. Where can I perform
a citizen’s arrest on the guy who gave the green light to this
movie for 20th Century Fox?
In this Bro Comedy gone wrong, Jake Johnson and Damon Wayans Jr. star
as Ryan and Justin – two guys from Ohio who never quite found the
fame and fortune they were looking for when they made the move to Los
Angeles. Both are 30-years old and neither is where they thought they
would be in life or in their careers.
Justin is a frustrated video game designer working as an assistant
because his company won’t produce his game.
Ryan is a former college football great who tried to make it in acting,
but his only role to date was as a dude in a commercial for a herpes
medicine.
Both are tired of the rejection and failure, so they decide to pack it
up and head back to Ohio, but they have a costume party to attend that
night. Justin has some cool and extremely realistic police officer
costumes, so, when the two start walking around in those on the way to
and from the party, people suddenly respect them. Ladies are attracted
to them, and other cops treat them like fellow brothers in blue.
It was supposed to be one night of fun, but Justin and Ryan can’t
resist the urge to start walking the beat dressed as cops, and they
soon find themselves running afoul of a powerful crime syndicate.
Can Justin and Ryan find a way out of this mess, or do
they have to crack the case for their own protection?
Johnson and Wayans have oodles of energy and charm to spare, but they
can’t save Let’s Be Cops.
Writer/director Luke Greenfield and co-writer Nicholas Thomas rely too
much on tired formulaic twists and turns when the funniest and most
entertaining parts of the movie are the outrageous and unexpected
moments running on Bro Power.
Essentially, Let’s Be Cops starts as a zany comedy
featuring two likable dimwits, but falls apart and becomes a
predictable action movie about two likable dimwits who are not
logically capable of doing anything we see on screen. When it’s
comedy, we are ready to laugh. When the mood switches to drama, we
can’t suspend disbelief enough to go along with what is happening
on the screen.
It’s a shame, because Johnson and Wayans deserve better. They
aren’t the next coming of Laurel and Hardy or Abbott and Costello
(if you don’t know who they are, please look them up, you might
learn something), but the two have some fun chemistry together and
bring a zeal and whimsy to the material that makes you laugh at the
funny stuff, even when it might not be that compelling. If you need two
guys to be the ultimate comedy salesmen, they are selling the heck out
of these jokes and getting full price when they should be on the
discount rack.
Sadly, Let’s Be Cops becomes overly conventional. The
audience is stuck with a predictable love story involving Justin and
the hot waitress he longs for. Ryan is dedicating himself to this
unlike anything else he has in years, so we all know where that is
going. I bet you can even figure out what Justin’s video game is
all about before you walk into the movie.
Maybe they could show Let’s Be Cops to prisoners doing
life in Attica, or would that be cruel and unusual punishment?
Let’s Be Cops is rated R for language
including sexual references, some graphic nudity, violence and drug use.
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