Police

LET’S BE COPS (2014)

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Errr, let’s not.

How to make a joke-free comedy.

This is a terrible film with an on the nose script and all the usual clichés and nothing original to offer, except for the idea.

Two mates have to go to a dress-up party and end up going as cops, quickly getting addicted to the perks and status elevation this gives them.

Jake Johnson is clearly very funny and gets the most interesting part here as a man-child who has no focus in his life. Damon Wayans Jr, on the other hand is far too weak as the other friend who is trying to sell his computer game idea to his company. Johnson and Wayans are friends who both appeared in the tv show New Girl. A shame this film couldn’t deliver as Johnson is a talent that deserves more.

Before long they get involved in a convoluted plot that includes mobsters and dirty cops. Director Luke Greenfield takes elements of the 21 Jump St remake but it just doesn’t gel.
Rob Riggle (21 & 22 Jump St) appears as a bumbling cop and brings his usual very funny schtick to the table. Andy Garcia gives good baddie and Keegan Michael-Key (one half of the very funny Key and Peele) plays a criminal informant, Pupa, and clearly has a lot of fun with his character.

This film falls way short of the laughs it promises from the trailer and there may be a sequel, which will be a travesty but probably an inevitability.

There are too many films like this out there, comedies desperate to hit the funny lottery but unfortunately their numbers come up way short.

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1.5/5

A HARD DAY-Kkeut-kka-ji-gan-da (2014)

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The South Koreans do it again, schooling Hollywood how, or really reminding them how to make a brilliant crime film filled with all the right elements to create suspense and excitement. Move aside Neesons, Willys, Stats, Arnies and Slys, this film will satisfy you in ways they can’t even dream of nowadays.

The literal translation of the title of this brilliant South Korean action thriller is “Take it to the End” which may have been a more fitting English name as events of a day lead on into the following days.

Detective Go Geon-soo played with absolute conviction by Lee Sun Gyun is being tested to the max by life and his choices; the chickens’ coming home to roost, all in a very short period.

His mother has just died and his police squad is being investigated by Internal Affairs for corruption, on his way to the funeral he commits a fatal hit and run and then tries to cover it up. To say anymore would be unfair to the uninformed and lessen the enjoyment that this superb thriller has to offer. The Hollywood execs could do with taking many, many notes from the way this thriller is put together.

The edge of your seat suspense doesn’t really stop until it has been ‘taken to the end’. It is reminiscent of the way Breaking Bad took you on a roller-coaster and never let you off half way. The twists and turns of the ride were never how you thought it was going to be and constantly surprised.

This is Kim Seong-hun’s second film as a director and it really feels as accomplished as though it were in the hands of a seasoned veteran like a Michael Mann, it also brings to mind the excellent Hong Kong cop thriller ‘Infernal Affairs’ that was remade by Scorsese into the inferior ‘The Departed’. No big shoot-outs here though, just turn up the heat and let it boil.

The acting is 100% believable with nary an actor out of place. This is what separates this from its Hollywood studio counter-players. No actor is weak, the script is taut, the direction fluid and the editing and soundtrack spot on. There are so many thrillers coming out of America and not one, of late, comes close to building the tensionthe way it is done here.

Cho Jin-Woong plays the nemesis to Detective Go Geon-soo and does so with a menace and relish rarely seen on the big screen. It is only his second film and we’ll definitely be seeing more of this talented actor in the future.

Sure, we have seen many of these plot devices before but we will suspend disbelief if we are being entertained and this certainly delivers in that department.

Move along Hollywood, South Korea has arrived.

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4/5