#40 - One Good Cop

This movie actually came in a two DVD set with Copland. Kind of like those annoying two-pack's you see at Costco that always seem to have one movie you want, but the other movie is one that you already own, or that nobody should ever want to own cause its a flaming piece of crap. As far as blockbuster.com is concerned this two-pack is considered a boxed set, which can be placed in your queue list as a set, or the discs can be placed there individually, which is a process that can be silly and not worth devoting any attention to right now. I bring all this up because I was thinking that this movie might be a good one. If one DVD in a two pack is usually not a very good movie, and Copland was not a very good movie, then this one has potential. Well, I was wrong. There can be two bad movies in a two-pack.

Let's just start off with the first sign that this was going to be a stinker. In the first scene that we see Michael Keaton's partner, played by Anthony Lapaglia, he is waking up in the morning, his daughters come in, you realize that the mother has passed away, its all very touching. What you do notice is that he has a cut on the bride of his nose. Okay, that's fine. Next scene with him is later that morning when he meets Keaton . . . and the cut is gone. Hmm, maybe he just cleaned the blood off is all. Well, they go to an apartment building in a bad neighborhood investigating a shooting or something. While there, they get jumped by three guys and in the ensuing scuffle, HE CUTS THE BRIDGE OF HIS NOSE!!!!! Seriously, how did that get missed? Or if it was noticed, how in the hell do you leave that in? I'm not one of those annoying jackasses who pays attention to the bite patterns on a sandwich in some scenes, but this is a cut RIGHT BETWEEN HIS FREAKING EYES!!! I guess the bad guys just reopened the wound.

So the Austrailian who acts like and Italian ends up getting killed. Don't worry, I'm not ruining anything since his death is the catalyst for much of the rest of the film. But then Mikey and his wife Renee Russo have to look after his kids after they haven't been able to have children. Are you sensing the dramatic tension yet? So we get a good cop/good husband thing, which could be an okay idea for a movie, just not this one. Really, this is the movie for you if you enjoy generic, cliche cop stories interspersed with REALLY sappy dramatic moments. And the two just dont really blend together. There is a cop moment, followed by a husband moment, then a cop moment, etc. Oh, there are generic Hispanic bad guys too. And there is Benjamin Bratt working outside of his normal range and playing a cop, if you can believe that one. And by the way, does Renee Russo do anything different in any of her movies? I have no problems with her as an actress, loved Get Shorty, but she is always the female lead in love or falling in love with the male lead. Think about it. Lethal Weapon. Ransom. Tin Cup. All the same damn thing for her.

In conclusion, this movie is a piece of crap.