Hi, I’m Meathead. If you’ve been lucky enough to be living underneath an enormous boulder for the last several months, or perhaps have been in a vegetative coma or working on a potato farm in a remote Siberian village, there’s a chance you may not have been exposed to the advertising blitz for director Kevin Smith’s latest offering, Cop Out. Those of us who are conscious and live in something approximating civilization are not so fortunate. At this moment, roughly two-thirds of the surface area of the greater Los Angeles area is plastered with images of Bruce Willis’ skull-like visage and Tracy Morgan, well, being Tracy Morgan. The film arrives with a crashing thud in theaters this weekend, which unfortunately means it’s too late to be nominated for the upcoming Academy Awards, but at least this gives Smith plenty of time to mount a “for your consideration” campaign for next year’s ceremony. There’s always hope (assuming absolutely no other movies are released between now and then)!
Many of you, or at least some of you (one of you?) have undoubtedly seen Cop Out by now. I haven’t. Now, I know, you’re violently shaking your screen and shouting “How dare you write about a movie you haven’t even seen? Especially a movie by the almighty Kevin Smith, who is physically incapable of creating anything less than a masterpiece of modern cinema? [citation needed]” Well, I’ve also never been stabbed in the pancreas with a rusty shank, but there’s enough evidence and first-hand accounts by prison inmates out there to give me a pretty reliable indication that I wouldn’t enjoy it. Maybe I’m wrong; maybe someday I’ll look back with regret on never having experienced the joys of tetanus, but that’s a risk I’m willing to take. I’ve seen the trailers for Cop Out, I’ve read reviews and “plot” summaries, and I’ve watched clips on the internet. Unless Smith & Co. are deliberately employing some sort of reverse psychology tactic by showing only the worst parts of the film, and the remainder of it not only makes up for the shortcomings of what I have seen but is so staggeringly transcendent that it would make Francis Ford Coppola throw up his hands and quit, I think I can say with a reasonable amount of confidence that Cop Out sucks.
The following is an exerpt from Roger Ebert’s review (he wasn’t crazy about it, it seems):
Jimmy and Paul are cops hunkered down across the street from a stakeout when they see a mysterious figure run across rooftops and break into a house. Seconds later, he can clearly be seen in an upper window, sitting on a toilet and reading a magazine. “What kind of a guy breaks into a house and takes a crap?” asks Paul, or words to that effect.
Paul explains he always delays this elementary function until he gets home. He’s not relaxed until then. But once he’s home — ooohhh boy! Then he lets loose. He describes the results in great detail. The walls, the ceilings. All right! I’m thinking, all right, already! I got it! Mudslide! Paul isn’t finished. Now he’s talking about the reaction of the neighbors.
Whew! It looks like Coppola can breathe easy for now. Of course, this is the part where Smith and his legions of mental midget fans will tell me to lighten up, it’s just a movie, nobody ever said it was Casablanca, etc. His Twitter feed for the last week (or more, I really couldn’t bring myself to go back any further) consists nearly entirely of retweets from his loyal apologists responding to those big mean critics and regular Joes who just happen to have standards. Anyone who dares to send Smith a tweet to say that, well, he can do better than this, will promptly be “KA-BLOCKED” (his term, of which he seems disproportionately proud). And by re-tweeting these sycophants, he can put these ridiculous exculpations out there while simultaneously stepping back and claiming “Hey, don’t look at me, I didn’t say that, they did.” Case in point:
See, Kevin Smith didn’t compare Cop Out to Blade Runner. He’s not pulling the “misunderstood artist” schtick. He was just quoting someone else who did so he could make a hilarious joke about it. Get it? Relax! Don’t be so uptight! Life is short! We’re just having fun! The movie is called Cop Out for fuck’s sake! The problem with resorting to this common defense is that in so doing, Smith is attempting to have his cake and eat it too (and quite a lot of it, apparently). The brilliant Harlan Ellison had this to say in regards to the “it’s all in good fun” argument:
When they fail to deliver what they’ve promised in all those tv clips, and we express our anger at having been fleeced, the shooters tell us we’re overreacting and we should feel a lot better about losing our five or ten or whatever amount they got out of us, because it was all a gag.
I wonder how well they’d take the gag if we paid for the tickets with counterfeit bills. Or pried open the firedoor at the theater and sneaked in with the entire Duke University Marching Band. “It was all a joke, fellahs; don’t take it so seriously; gawd, are you overreacting!”
-Harlan Ellison’s Watching, Installment 7: In Which An Attempt Is Made To Have One’s Cake And Eat It Too, [1985]
Smith’s endless backpedaling is blatantly hypocritical, but more than that, it’s simply lazy. See, Cop Out was never supposed to be a quality film, and if you’re one of those weirdos who actually goes into a movie theater expecting to receive entertainment commensurate with what you paid for, well, that’s your problem. The movie is even called Cop Out, so that somehow makes it okay for it to actually be a cop out! Fuck, if you’re going to go down that road, why stop there? Why not go all the way and call it what it really is?
Equally lazy is the way Smith rushes to the arms of his horde of endlessly loyal devotees who apparently still live in the 1990s, when his style of microbudget films stuffed to the gills with hip cultural references and toilet humor was still relatively fresh and new. The fans will always be there for him, and whenever his latest release gets savaged by those who value such things as “quality” and “maturing as an artist,” he can simply point to those slobbering fans and say “But they like it, so screw you!”
As a point of comparison, let’s take a look at Quentin Tarantino. In the early ’90s, both Smith and Tarantino were unknown film geeks who suddenly achieved cult hero status with their indie films Clerks and Reservoir Dogs, respectively. Both directors showed great potential, and enjoyed continued success during the following years. Like Smith, Tarantino also had millions of adoring fans who kissed his ass like most people breathe oxygen. What sets them apart is that Tarantino continues to make the movies he wants to make, not just what he thinks his fans want or expect of him. He’s willing to leave his comfort zone and to challenge himself and his audience. When you watch any one of his films, you can tell he genuinely cares about it.
In the opening scene of Inglourious Basterds (which somehow manages to be funny and terrifying at the same time), Col. Hans Landa is visiting with French dairy farmer Pierre LaPadite, and asks him for a glass of milk. When one of LaPadite’s daughters obliges, Landa takes a drink, smiles, and says “Mes compliments à vos filles et vos vaches,” which translates to “My thanks to your daughters and your cows.” However, “vache” is also a French slang term for “vagina,” a subtle detail that gives the innocent remark an entirely different, sinister meaning for those who are paying close enough attention. It’s that level of detail that is the mark of someone who genuinely cares about their work. You know, as opposed to Tracy Morgan talking to Bruce Willis at length about taking an enormous shit. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s great to see people with Down syndrome getting work, but I think even Tracy Morgan can do better than this.
Granted, Kevin Smith didn’t write Cop Out. The guilty parties in this instance are Robb and Mark Cullen (yes, it took two people to write this dreck), whose previous illustrious credits include episodes of TV’s “Gary the Rat” and “Las Vegas.” This minor detail is hardly relevant, though, because unless blackmail or threats from the Mafia are involved, nobody forced Smith, who previously only directed his own scripts, to take the job. Of course, after the failures of Jersey Girl, Zack and Miri Make a Porno, and the wholly unnecessary Clerks II, it’s understandable that he’d jump at the chance to score an easy paycheck. All right, fine. But the simple fact remains that it is not a good movie. There may be a few cheap laughs along the way, but if that’s all I’m looking for, I can just watch cat videos on YouTube. That’s not a substitute for quality filmmaking.
Kevin Smith says to stop being uptight. Life’s too short for that! But I would counter that with this: If life’s so short, why is he piddling around with tripe like this? Why is he okay with what he freely admits is a mediocre (but fun! It’s totally fun!) movie? Does he really think anyone is going to remember Cop Out in ten years? Honestly, the only reason I care enough to write all this is because I believe he can do better. That is, if he’d put the bong down, stop catering to his audience, and get out there and challenge himself to do something worthwhile. He’s become a slave to his fans. In this week’s LA Weekly, he’s quoted as saying he spent six months during his recent creative slump “smoking a shit ton of weed and watching a lot of hockey videos.” Yeah, it shows.
