“You don’t steal a f**king cop car!!!”
Directed by: Jon Watts
Written by: Jon Watts, Christopher D. Ford
Starring: Kevin Bacon, James Freedson-Jackson, Hays Wellford, Shea Whigham, Camryn Manheim
The H-Bomb: Somewhere in the middle of nowhere, 10-year-old runaways, Travis (James Freedson-Jackson) and Harrison (Hays Wellford), happen upon an abandoned sheriff’s car. Thinking this is like the coolest thing ever, they go climbing all over it, and inside of it, until they find the keys to the car, at which point they figure, what the hell, let’s just steal it. After all, if they do get caught, they can always just say that they themselves are cops.
Yes, even for 10-year-olds, they have astonishingly poor judgement, and stealing this cop car is just the first of many bad decisions to come… like later on, when they decide to play with the loaded shotgun and the assault rifle they find inside the car. Now, these kids would be in pretty deep shit if it were just a normal police vehicle that they stole. But it isn’t. This is no ordinary cop car, at all.
This particular cop car belongs to Sheriff Kretzer (Kevin Bacon), who is quite possibly the single most corrupt law enforcement officer the state of Colorado has ever seen. Kretzer is mixed up in some genuinely dirty dealings, involving drugs, murder, and God knows what else. He’s in the middle of covering his tracks, and disposing of whatever evidence there may be against him, when he realizes that his car is missing.
There is something of great importance to Kretzer in the trunk of that car, a piece of evidence even more damning than all the coke he’s flushed down the toilet, that he is most desperate to reacquire. Needless to say, tracking down that car, and dealing with the two prepubescent snot-rags who stole it, is now at the top of his to-do list.
Cop Car is a film I’ve heard quite a bit of buzz about from other critics these past few weeks, with many hailing it as this year’s Blue Ruin or Cold in July. I am a fan of both of those pictures, and of “Rural Noir” in general. Hell, my all-time favorite film is Blue Velvet, for Christ’s sake. So, when Cop Car became available to rent on Amazon Instant, I coughed up the $6.99 to give it a go, and while it certainly is a solid film, I’m just not as crazy about it as my fellow critics.
Part of the appeal of these backwater crime thrillers, and what makes them so effective, is their depiction of rural Americana. That these small towns and back roads, that seem so serene and welcoming, can be just as dark and dangerous as any big city. That’s something director Jon Watts (who is set to helm the latest Spider-Man reboot) absolutely nails. In fact, he even adds an interesting angle by having it all unfold from the point of view of two young children. Children who have no idea just how perilous the world around them can be.
This is driven home, all-too-effectively, in a scene in which our young heroes start horsing around with the guns they find in the car. It’s a scene that will make any parent squirm, regardless of their position on the 2nd Amendment. There is an innocence to these two runaways, a kind of unknowing innocence that could lead to tragedy. Watts’ sparse script, co-written with Christopher D. Ford, certainly gets that point across. Still, I was never as invested or riveted in what was happening as I felt I should have been.
A part of that, a large part of that, is the kids themselves. Their banter is often banal bordering on grating, and the way they play with the guns is so utterly reckless it stops being believable. I mean, I know kids can be stupid… but come on! You’ll have to see it for yourself to really understand what I’m carrying on about, and when you do, you’ll be wanting to knock some common sense into them, as well. Also, how the hell do they become such good drivers in such a short amount of time? Seriously, they seem to teach themselves how to drive a car within a matter of minutes. Maybe there’s a line of dialogue I missed, where one of them mentions that their parents taught them how to drive, but I’m fairly certain there isn’t.
Then there’s the film’s slim 89-minute run time, much of which is spent cutting between the boys goofing about, and Kevin Bacon running around like a chicken with its head cut off, with not a whole lot of anything happening. Normally, I don’t mind a good slow burn, but here I honestly became a bit bored in spots. Some sequences, like the one in which Bacon tries to break into a car, are so drawn out that they feel like padding. Hell, the big climatic scene goes on for damn near fifteen minutes. I imagine if all the dead air was cut from the film, it would barely be an hour long, if that.
As for the performances, the two child actors do fine, even though their characters can be exceptionally irritating. I personally preferred Wellford, as the slightly more sensible of the two, since Freedson-Jackson could be so bloody reckless I just wanted to slap him upside his moronic little head. I don’t give a shit how harsh I sound, I’m being fucking honest. Camryn Manheim is wasted as some obnoxious broad who sticks her fat nose where it most definitely does not belong, and Shea Whigam puts in a brief but impressive showing as a banged up heavy in the film’s latter half.
Cop Car‘s greatest asset, that makes up for a number of its shortcomings, is the villainous turn by Bacon as the most vile Sheriff to ever besmirch the badge. We don’t get to know much about his Sheriff Kretzer, but we learn enough to know that we’re better off not knowing him. Bacon, who spends the bulk of his screen time alone, interacting with no one, just oozes menace and desperation. He’s a man of low moral character who has been backed into a corner, which makes imagining what he’ll do to these kids when he finds them all the more horrifying. The scene in which he taunts them over the police radio is positively chilling.
Bacon is brilliant. This is possibly his best performance, and I’ve been a fan of the guy since the original Friday the 13th. He is the reason to see Cop Car, as he alone elevates this otherwise not-so-remarkable crime drama. Even at its slim running time, it feels protracted, and the child endangerment towards the end becomes so over-the-top, it’s downright manipulative. I know I stand alone on this, since the movie has garnered many admirers. But alone or not, I am standing my ground, Cop Car is merely decent. Bacon’s tense and terrifying lead performance most certainly did blow me away, the film itself, however, most certainly did not.
