Wrong Cops

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source: Wrong Cops

I don't understand how anyone can enjoy this. I like some weird stuff and will laugh at things in films when no-one else is, but it doesn't matter how abstract your sense of humour is I would advise you not to bother with this film as it just isn't funny. There is a very basic storyline and some central characters but NOTHING TO LAUGH AT; the script isn't witty or funny, the characters are mainly sleazy cops but the stuff they do is just boring or weird and there is no physical/slapstick type stuff either. In the first 10-15 minutes as the cop characters are being introduced I thought maybe there was some potential as they all seem like scumbags but then it just goes nowhere so after about 45 minutes I gave up. I admit I didn't watch it all but in my book if you have watched over half a 'comedy' without laughing once then it is not worth persevering with the rest. Just don't bother.

Initially, I was blown away by the stellar performances from supporting actors Eric Judor, Eric Wareheim and Marilyn Manson. Synth was an amazing choice for the soundtrack however that doesn't carry the movie out of the enormous hole it's dug itself into. The content could have easily fit into a 25 minute slot. At a gratuitous 83 minutes the humorous moments are very few and far in-between. Taking the liberty to be shot like an art-house film Quentin Dupieux has created a perfect storm of bland comedy. 'Wrong Cops' tries too hard to become a cult classic like 'The Room' yet barely achieves mediocrity. To sum the movie up in one resounding word, "meh".

I am personally very surprised by the movies low rating. It is true that the movie has a specific type of humor you have to be into. But when you are into this kind of humor, you will very much enjoy this movie. I was pretty much laughing continuously for the whole movie. I guess comedies always get a relatively low rating because there are a lot of people out there without any humor. However of all comedies, this is definitely one of the better ones. My advice: watch the movie, if you are not rolling on the floor laughing after the first 10 minutes, don't watch the movie. If you are rolling on the floor laughing, well I don't have to tell you what to do. Anyhow, there is also another point which is the music, I can imagine that some people are annoyed by Quentin Dupieux electronic music, yes, in that case this movie is not your movie.

"This stinks of Germany!," hollers Duke (Mark Burnham), a pudgy, crooked cop, who is one of the many characters in Quentin Dupieux's latest film Wrong Cops. The context involves a shady figure named David Delores Frank (Marilyn Manson) giving Duke a taste of the new-age, Dubstep-esque kind of music the kids are listening to today. The scene is an accurate summation of everything Wrong Cops includes - quirky characters, inane little vignettes, random bits of humor, comedic laxness, and bumping house music housed inside a seventy-eight minute runtime. This is Dupieux's third feature, his first being the widely-scene sleeper-hit Rubber, involving a killer tire, Wrong, a damning film about a man who wanders into the strangest of circumstances while trying to find his lost dog, and now Wrong Cops, the sorta-kinda followup to his last endeavor. The film continues the line of absurdist, surreal comedy, which is really hit and miss in the long run. However, Wrong Cops has probably more hits than any of Dupieux's previous features. Rubber was great fun for about fifty minutes - the problem was it was eighty minutes long - and Wrong felt like a screen writing exercise involving vapid characters and asinine circumstances clobbered together. Wrong Cops, similar to Wrong in several ways, flies by the seat of its pants, possessing a vague plot that can be summarized in a sentence and includes numerous vignettes on its many characters. The plotlessness helps Dupieux communicate every cockamamie thing he wants to in a relatively short amount of time, so calling the film a burden on somebody's behalf is quite the overstatement. The story revolves around a band of bumbling cops who accidentally shoot an innocent person and must dispose of his body. Now that the plot is out of the way, the story largely focuses on the antics involving Duke, a hilariously vulgar officer who deals bags of marijuana in secrecy by handing the customer the product inside a dead rat to avoid drawing attention. Duke, however, is at kind of a loss, trying to retrieve money from a customer (Steve Little) who continues to buy more and more marijuana without having the money. Another noteworthy character is Renato (Eric Wareheim), a dopey cop who barely gets by when he's left to his own wit. The only cop who seems to have sense is Shirley (Arden Myrin), who works closely with Duke. To begin with, the film feels like a series of fifteen minute long skits fit for the lineup of Cartoon Network's Adult Swim, strung together in a halfway coherent seventy-eight minute film. The spontaneity and unpredictability of this project can be commended as a rather risky effort by Dupieux but the result feels somewhat incomplete and lacking seeing as there really is no continuity in the film whatsoever. Furthermore, the anti-humor schtick is still wonky, once again leaving me at a point of confusion, as I don't know what the humor is trying to be other than as weird as can be because, as far as I can tell, the entire movement doesn't seem to know what it wants to be. Wrong Cops, however, is entertaining, albeit disjointed. Aside from the style of humor and situational weirdness that was clearly present in Wrong, the same goes for the easy-on-the-eyes, washed out cinematography, whose color-scheme consists of faded yellow, sky blue, and plain white to make for an always beautiful look. Quentin Dupieux is easily one of the damnedest new filmmakers, and I technically haven't really liked one of his films yet, but his style, efforts to blend contemporary surrealism with comedy, along with persistency into throwing characters and plots together for "no reason" begs to be explored, for it seems genuinely fresh and unique in an age where so much isn't. Starring: Mark Burnham, Steve Little, Marilyn Manson, Éric Judor, Eric Wareheim, and Arden Myrin. Directed by: Quentin Dupieux.

I managed to get through about 18 minutes of this. What a load of rubbish! Does anyone know how I can get that 18 minutes of my life back? I mean this is seriously a rubbish movie! (I'd swear but I don't think it'll get approved by the moderators...) Not funny. Stupid. I mean I like movies where cops are portrayed as crooked (Training Day), or cops that are funny (Police Academy), or cops in a realistic movie (End of Watch), but this???? I don't know what other reviewers saw in this? Whatever they've been smoking, maybe I need to do the same. Or perhaps not.... Save your time- don't watch this rubbish.

I'm gonna keep it brief. I got high, watched this and laughed. I laughed at its weird, incoherent plot line and it's weird, strange characters that did weird, crude things. The review before this mentions a "stilted dialogue" which I think is an accurate description...but in a good way. This is a very niche sort of humour - not for everyone granted. I'm not comparing it to Freddie Got Fingered, but if you're the type who 'got' that film, you'll understand this one - which I suppose is not reading into too much into it and just effin' laugh at it instead. The cinematography was definitely a plus as well. Not groundbreaking, but actually well considered for this type of film. All in all, its not to be taken seriously. This is someone just simply playing around and having fun.

I have never felt so ripped off and disgusted after walking out of a movie theater. They stole both my money and my time. I can't fathom how anybody gave this film a rating above 2 (except for the plausible exception of the guy that got high before watching this filth). The movie appears to be the work of an incompetent poseur freshman film student trying to make some type of avant-garde and eclectic movie which avoided the stereotypes of Hollywood and standard cinema guidelines. So much of this film was not only non-sequitur (in an unintentional way), but was filled with outdated, offensive "humor" which lacked any punchline. There are so many inconsistencies in the story line and no closure to key themes in the movie. (What happened to the dying guy who was in much of the film? He was just forgotten at the end). It appeared like the director watched a series of early-80's art-house films (Liquid Sky, Videodrome, etc) to be "inspired" to meld quirky music with jumping from scene to scene without much plot or consistency. Either that, or he watched a series of American police comedies (Police Academy, Reno 911) and did not understand that there are several jokes in those which are context-based or have some type of pop-culture reference. This film seemed to want to have such jokes but lacked any pop-culture connection for anchoring any of their attempts at humor. This movie not only falls flat but could only be a cult classic for those whose only method of sitting through it are taking drugs and entering an altered state of reality. The Russian connection of this film is obvious in the way they portray the police. I can only see that the inspiration was transplanting corrupt Moscow police mentality into LA and think that the audience will have both the cultural references for both of these environments. Even with this cultural context I felt completely violated by this film and can't get back either the time or the money I wasted on this worthless garbage.

8 out of 10 is quite a high rating, normally reserved for great films. This isn't a great film but it is a great comedy. It's great because it doesn't try to be funny or really even try to be a story. The concept and idea are strong and funny enough. So many good ideas are ruined because they try to be something and completely fail (anchorman 2, for instance). This is not a mainstream comedy by any shout, it's fresh, subtle and very smooth. Aesthetically and intellectually. This is very brave film making, it doesn't ponder to mainstream acclaim and for that it holds it's integrity. This film simply is what it is. If you like Eastbound and down or Green Wing then i advise you to give it a go, if your cup of tea is 'how i met your mother' then forget it. This isn't for you. I'd actually like to see this as a TV series.