REVIEW: Let’s Be Cops (2014)

Runtime: 104 Mins
Rated: R
What To Expect: Funny first half let down by so-so second

Let’s Be Cops comes down the pipe along with recent movies such as The Hangover series or the Jump Street series with shameless ‘bro business’ being handled, illegally.  As in ordinary guys being placed in R-rated abnormal situations.  I consider the Jump Street series to be just about effective (but not great) and The Hangover series to be a huge waste.  I’d say this movie belongs somewhere in the middle.  To be honest, unless it’s 4am later in the year and you’re fucked up and a copy of this is sitting around on Blu-Ray, I wouldn’t recommend it.

As you have probably gathered, this movie sees two bums who have hit thirty question their relevancy in life.  To take the edge off, they go to a costume party dressed as cops.  But they fuck even that up, since the party was a little more ‘up market’.  Having left the premises looking like idiots, as they walk home they find out that wearing realistic cop uniforms draws in pussy and respect.  Think Matt Dillon’s character from There’s Something About Mary.  Fake it until you get it.  Soon though, the two ‘cops’ find themselves drawn into real intrigue and trying to be cops, y’know, real cops.  For the first half of this movie, this stuff is funny.  No, really.  I thought we had a winner on our hands.  In fact at several points it’s laugh out loud funny.  It’s when things start to get serious that it slips into mediocrity.

The cops try to take down real gangsters, and in doing so the humor well runs a bit dry in the second half.  It gets a bit too aspirational and as a result the appeal of two guys fucking around and pulling over and humiliating thugs who have previously fucked them over kind of loses its edge.  Which is a pity.  Damon Wayans Jr. and Jake Johnson are a pair of good actors who share good screen chemistry.  They make the best out of it, and even Andy Garcia shows up – who we all know is good at black comedy given the chance.

But like I always say, when a movie is half mediocre, half good, the difference between it ultimately being average and ‘kinda good’, is the order in which you get those two halves.  If the movie starts out weak but has a satisfying ending, that’s okay.  But a good beginning with a weak ending isn’t.  The audience leaves unsatisfied, ultimately.  At any rate, with Let’s Be Cops, I expected something truly atrocious.   I was surprised to find something that came out swinging, even if it fell over itself.

I would not rule out a potential superior sequel to this.  But even though it could’ve been worse, it’s not worth heading out to see this summer.