Movie Review: "Let's Be Cops" (2014)

Movie: "Let's Be Cops"
Director: Luke Greenfield
Rating: R
Running Time: 1 hour, 44 minutes

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Justin (Damon Wayans Jr.) is a video game developer hoping to sell his game, Police Officer L.A., to his company. Ryan (Jake Johnson) is his unemployed roommate who has been living off of the money earned from his herpes commercial. One night, they are invited to a college alumni costume party, where they decided to go dressed as cops with the uniforms Justin had for his game presentation. These uniforms are very authentic and people around town mistake them for actual police officers. Ryan decides he wants to take this as far as he can; since getting injured, which cost him his college football career, he has wasted his life and feels this is an opportunity to do something with it. While pretending to be cops, they unintentionally provoke and draw the attention of a group of local gangsters who are involved in extortion and other heavy crimes. What Ryan and Justin are starting to realize is that pretending to be cops may wind up really cost them their lives. 

We saw a trailer for this movie many months ago back-to-back with a trailer for "A Haunted House 2." In both of these short clips, a similar joke about "jumpin' out on brothers" was used and we almost couldn't believe it. In fact, it was pretty much word for word. Even more surprisingly, the line was delivered by two people who are from the same family! What a coinky-dink.

Not to get too deep into the analyzing of this obviously implausible movie, but the story goes beyond just what the trailer shows. In the preview, two guys are dressed as cops are goofing off and being dumbasses, while trying to pick up women and taking silly police calls. As far-fetched as the story is as a whole, it actually gets sort of interesting the longer it goes, especially related to Ryan, who almost starts to believe that he really is a cop. He ends up wanting to bring down a major extortion and gun-running ring whatever the cost might be. Another thing about the trailer is that it made the movie look much more stupid than it really is. We were more than surprised when we laughed out loud several times throughout the movie, though it does have its fair share of eye-rolling misses. Damon Wayans Jr.'s Justin gets overly whiny from time to time. You just want to slap him and tell him to stop being so sniveling. He does have his moments as a character, though, and garners a few laughs here and there. We think part of why this movie got made in the first place is based off of the success of "New Girl," where Johnson and Wayans Jr. play roommates and friends. Their chemistry on the show is really great and is reflected on-screen in this film, though their "talent" isn't really allowed to show 100% with what they are given.

All in all, we did laugh a number of times, but this film is really nothing more than a cheesy, unnecessarily long comedy sketch that was drawn out into a feature length film. Critics will and have hated this movie, but we didn't mind it and welcomed something where we could actually chuckle from time to time in a month where most movies have sucked worse than this one. It is pretty generic for an R-rated comedy, though. It also came out at the wrong time, during the civil unrest going on in Ferguson, Missouri, which may have hurt its box office numbers and its overall rating. It's sad to think that two random people who purchased the necessary police tools on the internet were better cops than the actual police themselves. There are a host of pretty good supporting performances by Rob Riggle, Keegan-Michael Key, and Natasha Leggero, but none of these are enough to keep the steam between bad and flat jokes. If you take it for what it is, a raunchy and highly over-the-top comedy, you might smile every now and then.

My Rating: 6.5/10
BigJ's Rating: 6.5/10
IMDB's Rating: 6.5/10
Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 12%
Do we recommend this movie: Sure, why not?
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One year ago, we were watching: "Blue Jasmine"