On the "Let's Be Cops" Facebook page, this quote is posted: "Thinking is overrated. Get your ass over to the theater and be entertained!" So apparently if I don't think during this movie, I'll be entertained. What a misguided assumption. Perhaps the person who wrote that post was trying to warn us.. Whatever the case, the statement is wrong: "Let's Be Cops" lacks the blissful goofiness that would bring me to the nirvana-like state of the baby giggling at a silly noise or a well-handled fart joke. Instead, its jokes pile on top of each other, desperate for a laugh.
Jake Johnson and Damon Wayans Jr. star as Ryan and Justin, two thirty-year-old un-achievers who attend a costume party dressed as cops. The general public believes the two to be real, and after having a bit of fun with their new power, they raise the stakes on the charade, to the point where they buy a police car, patrol the streets, and get swept up in the middle of an arms smuggling deal.
The short review is this: "Let's Be Cops" is a bore. I openly laughed once. In 104 minutes, I laughed at a 30-second-long joke. (This is 0.48% of the running time, for those wondering.) The movie barrages, eventually suffocating the audience with action and jokes in its first half hour. It feels like the writers tried to cram as many jokes into a scene as possible, hoping one of them would hit. However, there's no time to let a joke sink in, so each impact falls flat.
When the movie does take a break, it slugs through, haphazardly crafting the plot as it goes along. It's as if the authors hadn't planned to do anything with certain locations and characters past the first act, and realizing there was an entire subplot left to go through, they had to tie every loose end together, logic be damned. By this point, I'm fidgeting around in my chair, checking the time. I don't care anymore.
Johnson and Wayans are each obnoxious in their own right. Johnson is more brash, with honking laughter and an abundance of unfocused energy. Wayans is the opposite, going on autopilot, save for a few scenes. He seems comfortable away from the insanity: smart thinking in real life, but I thought "thinking was overrated." When Johnson isn't bringing to mind a bad amateur night at the comedy club, Wayans is barely trying.
To sum it up, "Let's Be Cops" was a waste of time. The deciding factor in most flops this year so far is execution, and it's no different here. Giving power to those who shouldn't or don't have it is always a great source of comedy: look at "The Toxic Avenger", "The Nutty Professor", "Spaceballs". However, the pacing is a mess, the story is ridiculous, the jokes aren't funny, and the final nail in the coffin for "Let's Be Cops" is the cardinal sin of comedy: it's boring, another example of a good premise being done wrong. Just skip this one. Thank you for reading, I'm the Man Without A Plan, signing off.
"Let's Be Cops" trailer:
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