Review: Let's Be Cops

Longtime buddies Ryan (Jake Johnson) and Justin (Damon Wayans, Jr.) are at a crossroads. Ryan, a former college football star whose pro aspirations were cut short by injury, is living off the residuals of a genital herpes commercial. Dustin is a video game designer whose pitch for a game called Patrolman L.A. is ridiculed by his boss Todd Cutler (The League's Jonathan Lajoie), who decides that firefighters battling zombies is more original.

Mistaking their college reunion's masquerade theme for a costume party, they come decked out in authentic-looking police uniforms. Laid low by the success of their former classmates, they leave the party and stroll the sidewalks of Los Angeles to lick their wounds. Then something strange happens. Everyone seems to be looking at them a different way, maybe even giving them some respect. Jake, realising it's due to their uniforms, gets an idea: "Let's be cops!"

After a night of clubbing and being surrounded by the ladies, Jake takes the idea a step further. He purchases a decommissioned police vehicle on eBay, learns police codes and hand signals from YouTube videos, and even manages to convince real cop Segars (Rob Riggle) that they're true boys in blue. It's all fun and games and girls throwing themselves at their feet, but the two soon find themselves in real danger when they cross paths with the unpredictably violent Mossi (James D'Arcy), the head of the local Russian mafia.

Let's Be Cops has an interesting, though thoroughly implausible, premise that finds its surest footing in the scene that has the newly confident Justin re-pitching his game only for the presentation to be interrupted by the Russian thugs. Fantasy and reality intermingle with ease as do action and laughs. The rest of the movie, however, is hit and miss with intermittent laughs courtesy of the buddies breaking up a domestic disturbance between sorority sistahs and their dealings with a barely comprehensible street informant played by Key & Peele's Keegan-Michael Key (easily the best thing about the movie).

Johnson and Wayans Jr. play variations of their New Girl characters. Their chemistry is good enough to warrant another buddy movie, but Let's Be Cops is not the best showcase for their talents. The fault lies squarely on director Luke Greenfield and co-screenwriter Nicholas Thomas, who barely manage to sustain a premise that would have been better served as a sketch or a single sitcom episode.

Let's Be Cops

Directed by: Luke Greenfield

Written by: Luke Greenfield, Nicholas Thomas

Starring: Jake Johnson, Damon Wayans Jr., Nina Dobrev, Rob Riggle, James D'Arcy, Andy Garcia, Keegan-Michael Key, Natasha Leggero, Jonathan Lajoie