Wrong Cops seems to be Quentin Dupieux’s (Rubber) attempt to follow in the successful footsteps of the idiot cop film Super Troopers. He rounded up an all-star cast including singer Marilyn Manson, Ray Wise (Twin Peaks), Eric Wareheim (Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job!) and Eric Roberts and seemingly threw together the most random script humanly possible in hopes it would end up funny.
Officer Duke (Mark Burnham) accidently shoots a man while talking to teenager David (Marilyn Manson). The rest of the film consists of Office Duke and the rest of the local force doing illegal things like selling weed inside of dead rats, soliciting transvestite hookers, sexual harassment, and theft.
Wrong Cops is like a combination of Reno 911, The Upright Citizens Brigade and Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job blended into one. Now, while normally that would sound really awesome, it’s really not. It has the scripted randomness but its missing the dialogue. There is nothing witty about anything they say or in their reactions. The film relies on the hopes that the randomness itself will make the film comedic, but the randomness isn’t random enough.
For example, it’s supposed to be funny that Marilyn Manson plays a teenager. It could have been funny. They could’ve given him hilarious lines but, because those lines don’t exist, it really seems pathetic on Manson’s part that he is trying to pass as 30 years younger than he is.
I loved Rubber because it was meta and absolutely absurd. What cannot be funny about a killer tire? It didn’t matter what happened in the movie because the idea of it is already so ridiculous, it’s hilarious. Wrong Cops, however, doesn’t have that hilarious and original idea to make up for the lack of humor in the script.
I think what makes it so bad is that there really is no story. The start of the film gives you the impression that all of these ridiculous things are going to happen while Officer Duke attempts to dispose of the body of the man he shot but that story line drops real quick. There is no way of knowing when the movie is going to finish because there is no story. I seriously felt like I had been watching for hours.
Eric Wareheim is singlehandedly responsible for the few times I even cracked a smile. The rest of the cast reminds me of that kid at school who desperately wants to be the class clown but everyone hates instead.
Do yourself a favor and pop in Super Troopers because Wrong Cops is the wrong choice.
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