3.5/10

Two friends unsatisfied with the way their lives are going decide to take matters into their own hands portraying Los Angeles police officers when they are anything but. The movie stars New Girl Tv stars Damon Wayans JR and Jake Johnson as the comic duo. Lets Be Cops does nothing for their comedic chemistry that is shown on their TV show. Not much comes out in their portrayals of Justin and Ryan. The film itself wasn’t funny, terribly paced, and completely didn’t make any kind of sense in even the furthest stretched minds. For instance, Ryan was a college football star quarterback for Purdue University (Located in Indiana) yet they have a college reunion in LA. Did everyone decide to fly across the country for a college reunion or is this movie stupid enough to think it or we believe that Purdue is in California? That is just the tip of the iceburg with the absence of reality in this movie. Another factor is that if you can get by the fact that these two can portray cops and not get caught, they respond to every operator mission without calling it in. The cops never run into them while they are at the scene or the real L.A.P.D never stops to ask themselves how this call got answered when it wasn’t radio responded to begin with. The film was 100 minutes long, and that was way too long for a story that is entirely too easy to begin with. The movie’s awful pacing tells us everything that we need to know about our characters, the story, and the villains within the first half hour. The other 70 minutes drag without anything that remotely resembles a laugh in the slightest way. It’s sad that this is the debut of these two stars who have made such an impact in the TV world. Wayans in particular deserved a much better script with a title that is anything but generic. The one positive that i took from this movie was the performance of Rob Riggle. He is an actor who usually sticks pretty close to the same loud comdedic schtick in all of his movie, but Lets Be Cops saw him take on the role of a 90’s action star. It was such a fresh look for a character who makes you smile every time you see him on screen. You smile because you are used to getting ready to laugh for anything that comes out of this guy’s mouth. In this movie, they let him play the straight man without demeaning his character in the slightest way. Because our two main characters are annoying and fearful, Riggle is actually the guy we find ourselves cheering for. The rave reviews stop there however because Lets Be Cops is just a terrible movie. What frightens me the most about this film is that New Girl enthusiasts will see the movie and even enjoy the movie because Coach and Nick Miller are in it. I challenge you the viewer to demand more out of a comedy that had every chance to be enjoyable and just wasn’t. If you are paying attention, you the viewer will see lots of hilarious setups and payoffs that you have already thought of in your head. What happens is opposite of what you think, and it’s a lot less humorous of a result. The ending is terribly predictable mainly because we have seen this kind of zero to hero movie played out hundreds of times. There are some cameos that add a drip of comedic water for an audience already thirsty beyond it’s needs. Overall, i don’t recommend this movie at all. As i said before, New Girl fans will watch it and like it for it’s stars, but it’s just not a good movie at all. It’s sloppily made and just too long to push a genric story that comes off more as an action movie because it certainly isn’t funny. Instead of being cops, Wayans and Johnson should’ve aimed to be entertaining. Maybe then it wouldn’t have been one of the worst comedies of 2014.