"Cop Out" Maximum Comedy Mode Review

Let's get this clear up front: Cop Out was a terrible movie; the worst thing Kevin Smith had done until Red State. In fact, here is the entirety of my review from almost three years ago to the day:

This movie sucked. The end.

Score: 1/10. Skip it.

OK, why did it suck? Because it's unfunny, has a sloppy story, it's unfunny, Tracy Morgan is unfunny, it's tedious, boring, and unfunny. Oh yeah, it's not funny, either. Kevin Smith - directing from someone else's script for the first time, though you can tell he stuffed some of his childish humor in - must've thought he was making a homage to Eighties cop-buddy flicks like Beverly Hills Cop, but as Cop Out painfully proves, Morgan ain't no Eddie Murphy and having Harold Faltermeyer do the score doesn't put it in the same league. I laughed a few times at total throwaway gags, but so what? I'm a fan of Kevin Smith, but if I meet him, I'm going to punch him in the junk and demand my two hours back for wasting my time.

Jeez, dude, tell us what you really think.

So, why did I actually BUY a copy of the "Rock Out With Your Glock Out" (nice Iggy reference there, Kev) edition Blu-ray? A: Because I'm an extras fiend and I occasionally pick up a movie I hated just to see if in the extras they cop to knowing they made a bad flick. They never do, like with Green Lantern, but it's fascinating to see the self-delusion that went into failure. Also, it was $2 used at Family Video.

Amazingly, but not really surprisingly since Smith is still a witty raconteur despite having totally lost the plot as a filmmaker, watching Cop Out in this renamed "Maximum Comedy Mode" (rather than Maximum Movie Mode as used on other Warner Bros. titles like Watchmen, Sucker Punch and Terminator Salvation) is a much more enjoyable experience because Smith is funny in his usual way while discussing how the movie took shape in editing and reshoots to get to its final (awful) form.

There's a neat way they manage the deleted scenes and additional footage of alternate takes and improvs: When a deleted scene is happening, the letterboxing bars turn red and improvs have blue bars. Smith pops up in a PIP box occasionally to mock how the main version of him is yammering on. There is also a silly PIP "feature" called "Wisdom of the Sh*t Bandit" in which Stifler pops up to give some weird Jack Handy-esque bon mot.

While there are a couple of hints of the drama that working with Bruce Willis entailed, it's not surprising that Smith doesn't lay into his star in the middle of this splashy MCM production. (For that, you'll need to slog through his endless fixation on his wife's butthole in the occasionally enlightening Tough Sh*t: Life Advice from a Fat, Lazy Slob Who Did Good) The MCM experience run over three hours with all the extra stuff and Focal Point side trips, so if you've got a PS3 or BD player that can playback at 1.5X speed with subtitles on, it only takes around two hours.

What makes the Maximum Comedy Mode experience of Cop Out work is that you don't have to watch much of the lousy movie itself during it. Smith keeps things moving along in his trademark style and if you're a filmmaking nerd like me, you'll learn a few things. You just won't learn how all the good intentions resulted in such a miserably lousy movie.


Score: 8/10 (MCM mode ONLY! The movie itself still blows) Rent it.