Let's Be Cops (2014)

Let's Be Cops is one joke. The entire film is one joke over and over again. You see there are lots of movies that follow this rule, it's fairly common among the lower brow comedy films. Actually, one of my favorite comedies follows this logic, Dumb and Dumber. The joke is "look at how dumb these guys are" everything revolves around that one joke but man does it work. In Let's Be Cops the joke is "look at how they aren't cops.... but they're wearing uniforms!" honestly it works at first.... then it very quickly starts to drag on. I'll get into more detail lower but I want people to know that I will be having spoilers in this so if you care don't read on. If you have not seen it, but really, don't.

"Look! They're cops and they are chasing women! So funny"

The film starts with Justin (Damon Wayans jr.) and Ryan (Jake Johnson) in a diner talking. We learn through boring exposition that they have moved to L.A. to try to make it in the entertainment world and have yet to make any head way. Justin works at a video game company as an intern and Ryan was in a herpes commercial that payed 11,000 dollars which he has been living off of. Justin has been working on a game called "Patrolman L.A.". He of course bought some LAPD uniforms to do research with. After having his video game idea shot down, in a scene that people who know anything about current video games will find funny, he returns home to find out that he and Ryan will be going to a party that night and need costumes. They debate costumes and after a minute of debate we have a title... "Let's Be Cops!" Ryan yells.

"But we don't know how to be cops!"

The concept could be funny with a powerful script but as they go through the movie the novelty of guys dressed as cops smoking weed and telling people to stop walking because they can wears off.  Granted, this type of comedy isn't really in my wheel house but I swear I only laughed once every few minutes and it's not like they weren't trying, jokes and visual gags were a plenty they just never really hit. A scene that stands out is Justin, now called Officer Chang, searching people by making them dance. People in the audience were laughing as he instructed them to twerk. Still an unfunny comedy, not that rare, no this film goes beyond that. It attempts to be an action comedy.

The action is awful. It's really some of the worst, unnecessary, boring action I have seen on film. What makes it worse is that the action kicks in during the last 10 minutes. It, of course, starts with the obligatory "suit up" scene. What baffles me is that there are tons of guns shown yet they each only bring one pistol with one clip, both run out of ammo instantly. A perfect example where this is done right is in Hot Fuzz, which I would have much rather watched.

The cast in Let's Be Cops is strong and the acting is pretty good. It's just to bad that the director and editors must not have known what they were doing. Scenes go on for to long and sometimes feel like they were completely unneeded. It's a poorly crafted film. It's not very funny. The action is awful. So what's the good?

Rob Riggle

I give this film 4 real bullet proof vests out of 10.