MasterChugs Theater: ‘Cop And A Half’

Mmmmm. Do you smell that? That’s the smell of some stinky movies being made. It’s like napalm and rubber mixing, but with a hint of rosemary and maybe a sprinkling of thyme. It should be no surprise that I look forward to this month all year long and my attempt to please the crowd is at an all time high this year. Crowd-sourcing is the name of the game this time around, and to kick it off, I’m reviewing a movie recommended advised solicited by fellow Guy of this site, Bryan McBournie: Cop And A Half.

We should all be so lucky as to have his doe-eyed optimism.

Cop And A Half is the epitome of the wunza movie, a type of film where two different types of people are matched up, as in “wunza cop, wunza kid.” Burt Reynolds starred as a grizzly (but not grizzled) cop who doesn’t like kids. Oh, and he doesn’t play by the rules, because we apparently needed more reasons to find him so uncouth. I’m not sure if we’re surprised then that he gets paired up with an eight year-old boy in order to protect the kid’s life after he sees something the mob doesn’t want him to see?

I wish I could’ve been the kids that don’t see something the mob doesn’t want them to see, especially if this movie was said thing.

Perhaps this movie turned out the way it did for the same reason most “family movies” turn out the way they do: It was made either by people who were never children or who have forgotten what it was like to be one. They have no concept of what makes children laugh, or how to speak to children, or what children will find entertaining.

At one time, director Henry Winkler (yes, THAT Henry Winkler) was the coolest man in America, playing the Fonz on “Happy Days.” Then, before you knew it, the show stopped being funny or popular, and then it ran for seven more years, and then it was canceled and everyone realized Henry Winkler was never actually all that cool to begin with, and we’d been duped. Is it possible Henry Winkler was never a human child, but came to earth as a full-grown product of Hollywood hype?

This is a film directly from hell, spawned by Satan himself and unleashed upon a wicked world as punishment from God. No, I don’t think that’s hyperbole at all.

Most of the jokes in the film are nothing more than Devon saying things cops say, and we’re supposed to find it funny because he’s so young and small. Which means that if Burt Reynolds had been partnered with, say, a sandwich, the film would have worked just as well. Even better, maybe, because then Burt could have eaten the sandwich, and eating sandwiches is funny.

Noted movie critic Roger Ebert infamously gave this movie a thumbs up rating. It’s gone down in history as potentially his worst mistake ever, and rightfully so. It’s bad. It’s so very, very bad. Oy, it hurts. I warn you, don’t watch this movie, but if you must subject yourself to such pain, it can currently be seen on Watch Instant on Netflix (for those that have it, and if you don’t, it’s totally worth just over 8 bucks a month).