The trailer for this movie made it look absolutely awful; the premise at face value is one of the worst for any film this year, if not the last few years; the comedy bits we got were limp and just not funny; and when the best part of the whole thing is a Method Man song being played over it, you’re not doing a good job at selling your movie. But I have written before about my expectations with movies and how they aren’t always on par, so really this could go either way.
The plot: Two roommates, Ryan (Jake Johnson) and Justin (Damon Wayans Jr.), dress up as cops for a high school reunion. They soon discover, after a walk on the town, that people mistake them for real cops. Liking the attention they’re getting, they continue the charade, complete with fake police car, and get tangled up with real criminals.
We’re dealing with buddy cop movie here, and this is where
most of the good points are brought up with other critics: The chemistry
between Johnson and Wayans. Admittedly, they do work well together (Certainly
better than Kevin Hart and Ice Cube), but the material they’re given isn’t
great most of the time. This feels more like a collection of skits in terms of
the jokes, and I’ll definitely say that Wayans comes out the better of the two.
True, more than a few of his jokes are about him being black, because God knows
that those jokes never get old, but
overall he gets the better material. His best scenes are when he has to go
undercover to find out the main antagonist’s plan, showing off one of the
funnier portrayals of a guy off his tits on drugs that I’ve seen (Still no
DiCaprio), and when he pitches his idea for a video game to his company, which
almost makes this movie feel like it’s trying to say something of significance
about the difference between the public perception of police work (i.e. from video
games, movies, etc.) versus the reality. Of course, the latter is hurt by not
only the fact that it is somewhat out of place with the rest of this movie, not
to mention the fact that the game company seriously just poo-poos a game about
being a policeman (L.A. Noire ring any bells?), but these scenes still work
regardless.
I will give this film credit in that it isn’t nearly as
stupid with its premise as its trailer made it look: We see scenes of Ryan
getting properly into his role as a fake police officer, looking up protocols
and self-defense techniques that cops use (From YouTube of all places, but it
shows he’s at least trying), and Justin looking into the laws involved because,
you know, imitating an officer of the law is all kinds of illegal, not to
mention the other shit they get up to and get hold of. I was expecting to
completely hate these two, but they actually came off rather well: Ryan is a
bit of an asshole, and a failure to boot, but you can at least understand why
he would want to be a policeman for more than just the possibility of hooking
up with sorority sisters (Yeah, that scene from the trailer still looks bad in
context, I’ll admit that); and Justin is a good straight man to play off of
him, being a lot more self-aware of just how ridiculous this entire situation
is, but also allows Ryan to be the enabler and convince him to join in against
his better judgement to get some fun in his life (not to mention getting away
from his dick of a boss), which I can understand as far as his character is
concerned.
I referenced Ride Along earlier, and since my knowledge of
buddy cop movies is pretty limited, I’ll make a few more comparisons between
the two. For starters, I will say that the bad guys in both movies are pretty
cool. Whereas Ride Along got an unexpected but welcome extended cameo from Laurence
Fishburne, here we get James D’Arcy, whom for some reason I kept mistaking for
Ethan Hawke for most of the film. D’Arcy does a great job as Mossi Kasic,
giving the character a very manic yet intimidating air to him. We also get Andy
Garcia as his partner in crime, a casting decision that I slightly scratched my
head at but for no other reason than that it started giving me Little Fockers
flashbacks. All the same, he does well with his role with a calm yet unsettling
demeanor. One final note while we’re talking about actors: Keegan-Michael Key
as Pupa is a definite scene-stealer here, and I’m glad for it.
All in all, despite how positive this all sounds,
this is just okay. Keep in mind that the comedy is a lot more miss than hit,
and it does take a while to really get going with more of the hits, and all
these positives aren’t exactly floating as easily as they were.
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