MovieChat Forums > Cop Out (2010) Discussion > GREAT SCRIPT Pathetic Direction

GREAT SCRIPT Pathetic Direction

posted 13 years ago by FilmMonkeyMan
2 replies | jump to latest

From the opening scene, you could almost see how good it would have looked on paper, after all it was noted as one of the "Best unmade screenplays" under the original title THE TWO DICKS.

Kevin Smith, with his sledge hammer, obvious, gross out taste, had the two leads play it campy and silly like a modern day Marx Brothers film, instead of witty, real and wise. The film is a mess, an embarrassing disaster that's really difficult to watch. But then again, it takes a MAJOR director with a lot of balls to tell Bruce Willis not to "camp it up", which Kevin apparently wasn't able to do.

I like Kevin, he's great on stage, his films are uneven but consistent and at least 50% funny, but not this one. He was absolutely wrong for it, and it hurt everyone involved.

[–] lagoni 13 years ago

I thought both the script and the directing were terrible. Seriuosly, there is a minor monologue about how much Morgan's character poops... The opening scene (the one with the card, right?) might have worked better on paper, but 'better' doesn't mean good in this case.

I agree with what you write about Kevin Smith and I am also a big fan of some of his podcasts, so it pains me to say the movie wasn't good, but it really wasn't.

[–] FilmMonkeyMan 13 years ago

I think he was so far out of his element that he couldn't see how bad this was. I remember a SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN script he wrote in the 90's that was DAMN GOOD, it was EXACTLY like the book Cyborg, and if it had been made, it would have been "non Kevin Smith" and very true to the Scifi original. But he's gone this direction and I don't think he knows how to do anything else.