You are probably reading this review in the very brief window before this film disappears to Sunday afternoon cable superstations. This is really kinda, sorta, what this film wants to be, an 80s on cable all the time type of movie. The dodgy and blunt script makes no bones about it, as the opening ‘comedy-set-piece’ (for lack of a better phrase) involves a bad-cop, bored-cop routine where the interrogation and intimidation wordplay is pulled from (in Bruce Willis’ own words) “everything on cable.”

But the question is whether or not director Kevin Smith (his first crack at a ‘director-for-hire’ studio gig) intended the film to be this sloppy, thus smacking the bulk of the film-going audience in the face, or whether this is a not-too-subversive but nevertheless a prank. Because, the film is very shaggy and never seems to get any momentum going either in an individual scene or in assembling its Frankenstein’s Monster of ‘hommij’ to Beverly Hills Cop, Another 48 Hours, Lethal Weapon and Rush Hour. It is not a stretch that the script could have been just as easily been sculpted into Lethal Weapon 5 or Rush Hour 4. Even by that low-low benchmark – buddy cop movies are not what they used to be (lazy perhaps, but I blame Michael Bay and Martin Lawrence) – Cop Out barely gets up to the plate and then keeps swinging mightily at poorly pitched soft-balls. Tracy Morgan hams it up, Bruce Willis coasts in an easy-going laid-back way and Sean William Scott comes in to inject some energy whenever the film starts to spin its wheels more than usual.

Clearly the best thing about Cop Out is the synth-y Harold Faltermeyer score. If you do not recognize that name, he is the guy who did the quite memorable, oh-so-1980s, soundtracks from Beverly Hills Cop (Axel F) and also Fletch. But for this film it is part joke, part half-ass recycle of the latter (Now I pine for what would have been Smith’s Fletch reboot with Jason Lee). And that it Cop-Out in a nutshell. It is never inspired to the level of Hot Fuzz or Black Dynamite, clearly the modern benchmarks for creative, loving-parody. No, Cop Out is more along the lines of what Smith has twittered and podcasted over the films post-production phase – an easy way to him to recharge his creative battery after the somewhat baffling let down of Zack & Miri Make A Porno. That film was a perfectly enjoyable and often creative film; a tiny but sincere ode to the communal group-hug of indie filmmaking. That it did not get the Midas touch of Judd Apatow from the presence of Seth Rogan and Elizabeth Banks is kind of surprising. Smith pretty much ushered in this sort of sincere-crude buddy-bromance on the big screen before Apatow was doing a lighter version on television. Ganglier and cruder, Clerks and Chasing Amy tilled the fields for the Apatow Industrial Farm to annex a sizable chunk of studio-comedy territory.

I digress, but only because there is not much to talk about with Cop-Out and stay positive. I have a soft spot for Kevin Smith, enjoy listening to his dialogue and tend to forgive him his sins (cinematography, action, acting), but without a screenplay grown from the ground up, its darn hard to keep a sunny outlook. Sure, there are scattered laughs, but really it is the cinema equivalent of Muzak – kinda recognizable, probably soulless, yet not really worth getting worked up about. It is passably amusing to play ‘spot the film this is scene is cribbing from’ or wonder why bother to cast Kevin Pollack or Jason Lee if you are not going to give them much of anything to do, but this film clocks in at nearly 2 hours (with credits) which is way overkill. Plot threads get all worked up, but then fizzle and fall apart. Everything is resolved in a pat parcel (as is true for most of the Buddy Cop genre) but there is nothing to talk about on the way home.

If this review seems shapeless and lazy, all over the place and involve a few too many adjectives or say nothing that has not been said of the last few Kevin Smith films, well it all in the spirit of Cop-Out. Lets go get a taco, and a blunt, and listen Smodcast. Have a week.