Let's Be Cops: Movie Review

Let's Be Cops: Movie Review

Cast: Jake Johnson, Damon Wayans Jr, Nina Dobrev, Rob Riggle, Andy Garcia, Keegan-Michael Kay
Director: Luke Greenfield

It's a buddy cop movie where the guys actually aren't cops, but are doing what cops do.

New Girl's Jake Johnson and New Girl's / Happy Endings' Damon Wayans Jr are down-on-their-luck buddies Ryan and Justin, who've hit their 30s and who are finding life in LA is going nowhere. On a whim, they dress as cops for a masquerade party, and upon leaving, discover that people take them seriously as police.

So, on Ryan's insistence and with some Youtube tutorials, the pair continue to be cops and enjoy the perks of the job. However, it soons brings them into the sights of Russian gangsters and a nefarious conspiracy.

Let's Be Cops is a comedy that's not arresting in the slightest; while there's some admirable chemistry between Johnson and Wayans Jr, the laughs from the script are more or less non-existent. Half the problem is the situation isn't mined for enough laughs, with Greenfield settling for getting Wayans Jr to screech and squawk over the top lines and reactions and Johnson simply mugging his slacker schtick.

The Vampire Diaries' star Nina Dobrev is more or less pointless in this film, looking like she's stumbled out of some kind of hair commercial and proffering little to the proceedings; Rob Riggle delivers some laughs before awkwardly segueing into drama at the end; Garcia shows up to phone in a Pacino-like performance and the only real laughs come from Keegan-Michael Key's Hispanic dealer who becomes part of the gang.

The biggest laughs are saved for the out-takes on the credits, leaving you bemoaning the fact Let's Be Cops has squandered all of its potential, and that those involved in the making of it had more fun than those watching it or wishing that more had been poured into the characters and writing.

Ultimately, Let's Be Cops is under-cooked, relatively simplistic and maybe is trying to hark back to the earlier buddy cops dynamic (even a Lethal Weapon reference is thrown into the mix), but there's just not enough meat on the bones to make this anything other than a broad slog that should be locked up and the key thrown away.

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