Can You Guess the World's Biggest Cop Out Hater?

It didn't take much imagination to contemplate the tsunami of critical bile that would wash away even the most modest hopes for Kevin Smith's Cop Out. Indeed, as the film's Friday release date approaches, the film has made enemies everywhere from Movieline to Rotten Tomatoes. But one particular critic today took his skill for evisceration to some pretty profound new levels.

Give it up for Rex Reed, whose review of Cop Out stirs his trademark bitchiness, creative insults and apparent loathing for Kevin Smith into a frothy, toxic new cocktail I think we'll just call "the Hater." A taste, if you please:

The latest pollution from the celluloid dumpster is sub-mental horror called Cop Out, starring Bruce Willis and a screeching, eye-rolling, potty-mouthed comic named Tracy Morgan as the newest team in a seemingly endless stream of mismatched NYPD cop-buddy flicks [...]

The hack responsible for this miserable dreck is director Kevin Smith [...] whose zero talent as a director of such cinematic brain lesions as Clerks, Mallrats, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and Zack and Miri Make a Porno has made significant contributions to the dumbing down of America [...]

The Willis-Morgan team is about as on point as four legs with the ankles missing. [...]

The sleep-inducing Cop Out was originally called A Couple of Dicks, so be grateful for small favors. An even bigger favor would have been burning the negative before it left the lab.

OK! So what's Smith's reaction? Well, it's complicated -- but thanks to magic of Twitter, it's complicated in 140 characters or less: "Dear Karina @VillageVoice," Smith wrote Tuesday in his most recent tweet. "Many thanks for absolutely getting it. I need not read another COP OUT review after yours." Oh, come on, suck it up. You can't reject magic!

· Please Don't Make Me See Cop Out Again! [NYO]



Comments

  • Brian says:

    Kevin Smith can't direct anything worthwhile outside of Clerks/Jay and Silent Bob, but he at least does well with that much. Rex Reed may well be correct about Cop Out (the trailer looks awful) but he's still a major douche.

  • HwoodHills says:

    This may all just be fall out from last week's dramatics.
    Morgan is funny...Willis knows how to play...And Smith has (unfairly so, I think) become the "Go to Kick boy" for critics.
    He gave a positive review to SWING VOTE.
    That's all I'm saying.

  • CiscoMan says:

    "The Willis-Morgan team is about as on point as four legs with the ankles missing."
    Perhaps I've been dumbed down by too many Kevin Smith films, but how on point is four legs WITH ankles?

  • forever1267 says:

    Kevin Smith gets Big Bonus Points for one of the best Romantic films of the 90's "Chasing Amy". Probably will rent this, but it does look at least funny, which is more than most comedies can say these days.

  • niloc says:

    I'm guessing he's referring to the dance position "on point" rather than, say, being pointy... just speculation though. Though I'm pretty sure that's spelled differently.

  • CiscoMan says:

    I actually spent some good Googling time trying to figure it out. Apparently, the ballet phrase is (as you suspected) spelled differently -- "en pointe." There's also the military "on point" as in the person at the head of a formation, which has nothing to do with ankle prowess, at least not directly.
    A Tribe Called Quest's song "Once Again" features the lyric, "You on point, Tip?"
    It's also a legal term.
    God, I love a tortured metaphor.

  • bailey says:

    Oh, as if Rex Reed knows shit about shit. That guy hasn't been relevant since he was sharing the balcony with Showtime's lovable, walrus-mustached Bill Harris.