Let's Be Cops Review

I guess that whole 11% rating on Rotten Tomatoes wasn't just a misunderstanding for a huge group of critics. How did they manage to make such a funny and convincing trailer that you would manage to get the opposite result once you see the actual movie? All the funny parts were not just in the trailer, and there were plenty more to come by in the actual movie; so what WAS the big mistake here? It wasn't the hilarity actually, it was the realism. All the realism was in the trailer because I guess the trailer makers KNEW that the plot was so stupid and inaccurate that the trailer only included our two main characters trying to act as cops to random civilians instead of the actual plot that arrives only within the first three minutes of the movie. It's sad to say that having no plot to this movie would've actually made this movie better, which I didn't think was possible.

We open up with our two main characters of Ryan (Jake Johnson) and Justin (Damon Wayans Jr.). Ryan is an unemployed ex-football player who lives off royalty checks he made from a commercial about Genital Herpes. Justin is a "apparently gifted" video game designer, only his co-workers and bosses won't listen to his ideas at all for no real reason really, so the audiences mind will just assume that Justin's a pussy and we're supposed to root for him to do better and be manlier instead of his co-workers to just listen to him and grow a brain. When a party comes into the mix and our main characters have nothing better to do, Ryan decides to have he and Justin go to the party as Cops because he assumes it's a "costume" party. When people at the party point out everything that's wrong with both their characters and development, they decide to leave and coincidentally have the whole friggin city of L.A. award them with every good advantage in the book because people think they're actually cops. Drunk girls on the streets are making out with them because they're dressed as cops, they just happen to catch three teens smoking weed on the city sidewalk instead of going to a back alley like people in the "not-movie-world" would do, and ANY citizen just does what they say without ANY questioning what so ever on how they became a cop or how long they've been one.

When all is going well for them, Ryan decides to take his cop advantage one step further by trying to humiliate a few guys that hit his car a few days back; but of course those few guys just happen to work for a gangster, by the name of Mossi (James D'Arcy) who goes around collecting money from places like our main character's restaurant where Justin's love interest, Josie (Nina Dobrev) just happens to work there, and just happens to be single, and just happens to fall for Justin all because she thinks he's a cop. With that amount of idiocy and coincidence all occurring within the same friggin building, it's up to our two main undeveloped characters to save the day using an occupation they decided to lie about having. Also Rob Riggle's character is a real cop who teams up with our main characters because of the movie's convenience.

I couldn't tell whether the movie was winking at the audience or not in stating how ridiculous the whole premise is, knowing we see both our characters do that numerous times throughout the movie. I can only say that it was done A LOT better in 22 Jump Street which is what made that movie good. This one, I believe the filmmakers lost track in what the moral of the story is. At least we get funny and watchable performances from Jake Johnson and Rob Riggle (who were both in 21 Jump Street) who try and make the best of what's around them. Damon Wayans Jr. on the other hand did not have anything special (performance wise) to provide unless he was trying to be charismatic off of Jake Johnson's dialogue. The whole story with our characters is highly unconvincing and strikes zero interest with any character build-up. Before I left to see this movie, I looked on IMDB saw what else Writer/Director, Luke Greenfield had done. I then sank to the bottom of my seat when I saw it was the same guy who did the atrocious Rob Schneider flick "The Animal", and he clearly has not learned any lesson since then except for how to capture a funnier performance. Jake Johnson and Rob Riggle are the only reasons for checking this movie out because they make this movie at least watchable throughout. The rating I give this is A LOT higher than it deserves, but this might be my guilty pleasure of this year, all because Jake Johnson and Rob Riggle's performances make it so.

**