LET'S BE COPS
R
104 Minutes
Director: Luke Greenfield
Writers: Luke Greenfield, Nicholas Thomas
CAST Jake Johnson...Ryan Damon Wayans Jr...Justin
Rob Riggle...Segars
Nina Dobrev...Josie
'We live in a society of laws. Why do you think I took you to all those POLICE ACADEMY movies? For fun? Well, I didn't hear anybody laughing! Did you?! Except at that guy who made sound effects. Where was I? Oh yeah: stay out of my booze.' -Homer, THE SIMPSONS (3F07)
Just like with that BATTLESHIP movie, it seems like someone came up with the LET'S BE COPS title before writing the screenplay. I've never seen a movie so unapologetically bland, and middle-of-the-road. It's the film equivalent to Hootie and the Blowfish's, I ONLY WANT TO BE WITH YOU.
Ryan and Justin are a couple of 'regular guys' in their early 30s, who, like the title suggests, decide to imitate police officers.
This movie isn't supposed to be realistic. Any scheme like this would land you on DATELINE or in a penitentiary. These fake cops walked around in generic uniforms, without the proper patches. You can't overlook these details. Don't half-ass it, because people will notice. When I dressed up as Fox Mulder for a costume party, I spent an hour at Kinko's trying to make a realistic-looking TV-FBI badge. It's too bad I didn't look like David Duchovny though, with my beard and all.
Kevin James, Seth Rogen, and Kevin Hart played security guards who wanted to be police officers. The cadets in POLICE ACADEMY, weren't real police officers. And one could argue Batman was just a wannabe cop, who couldn't pass a psychological evaluation. LET'S BE COPS runs contrary to all previous cop-imitator films. These men only care about looking like cops. Nonetheless, Justin and Ryan find themselves having to enforce laws, in the process of trying to pick up women. Picking up women would be easier if you pretended to be a fireman. They've done real studies on this. Additionally, it's easier to lie about being a fireman. And people don't hate you as much.
Even with all my criticism, I still feel most people have been too hard on this film. Yeah, it was predictable, and the characters weren't very interesting. But there was some nice action, and ttfm rd ga few segments of engaging cinema. So LET'S BE COPS won't make you laugh, but it won't piss you off either. You'll leave the theater, just shrugging your shoulders, never thinking about this movie again.
Final Verdict: 50 out of 100