Cop Car Review

I'm finally back with a review. It's been about a month since I've been able to see a movie as I had a pretty busy August. However, I am back and I hope to catch up on all the films I missed last month. Either that or I might just do a wrap up of all the things I didn't review at the end of the year. Anyhow, I'm here to talk about a little indie thriller that probably would have slipped past me had it not been for the man directing it. Jon Watts helmed the film. If that name sounds familiar to you, it's probably because he was announced as the director of the upcoming Spider-Man reboot for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. So, I was curious to learn about him. Cop Car was a reasonably entertaining movie when it wasn't meandering in nothingness, but I can't see the correlation between it and Spider-Man. Seems like quite a jump to me.

That's not what this post is about, however. This is a review of the movie itself. Cop Car is about two runaway children who happen upon a seemingly abandoned police car while walking through a field. After they discover that the car is empty, they decide to hop in. Of course, as you probably guessed, they end up figuring out how to put it into gear and drive away. As they wildly drive through the open fields and onto the roads, living any kid's dream, they don't realize that they have stolen the Sheriff's cop car. And this Sheriff has secrets.

Kevin Bacon headlines the film's cast. It's nice to see him doing more than just self-parody; you can tell he's actually enjoying himself with his performance as the Sheriff. On the surface, he's a normal policeman. But you can tell there is something sinister boiling underneath. Bacon was great. The supporting cast is minimal, but everyone involved turns in really solid performances, including the two young boys that play the kids. I'm not familiar with either of them, but I was impressed with their acting abilities.

The film starts out very well, setting the stage for what could have been one killer movie. The premise is simple enough to not get in the way of the story, and the cinematography is evocative enough to provide genuine suspense. However, after the first act, Cop Car got lost somewhere. In the midst of trying to keep the film a simple thriller, Watts forgot that there is a line between simple and nonexistent. There is basically no middle of the movie. Nothing is developed or explained, we as the audience are simply thrown into the action without being told what the action is all about.

Normally, I'd commend a filmmaker for straying from incessant plot exposition, but only if the storytelling is skillful enough to let the viewers know what is going on in other ways. There is absolutely no development of character or story in Cop Car. There is nothing to make us feel anything or care at all about the events unfolding before us. Yes, the actors do a good job, but they inhabit ideas of characters rather than actual charcaters. As a result, the movie feels meaningless.

That may seem harsh, but I was honestly taken aback by how little the movie was actually about; it was to the point that I had trouble getting through the latter half of the movie because I felt like I was watching the season finale to a show I hadn't seen any other episode of, even though I had seen all the rest of the movie.

What held my attention was the aforementioned performances and the rock-solid cinematography. There were a handful of moments throughout the movie that were genuinely suspenseful, even though I didn't care about what was going on. Watts shows a keen eye for crafting intense scenes solely out of situations and visuals (as I've said multiple times, he has very little character depth to add to the tension). The final moments of the movie were very well-shot and were admittedly quite gripping, which was the moderate payoff that was missing from the rest of the film.

All in all, Cop Car is a mixed bag. On one hand, it's the absolute minimal bare bones of a movie; very little character, even less plot, and not much imagination in its writing. On the other hand, it has some effective moments of suspense and starts off with an intense opening act. Kevin Bacon and company do a good job on the acting front, and Jon Watts proves he has some skill as a visual director. He'll need to work on his screenwriting and storytelling if he wants to do the character of Spider-Man justice, though. Quite honestly, Cop Car felt like a really solid beginning and a really solid end to a movie that had its middle cut out completely.

C+