The buddy cop comedy genre has always been a personal favorite, as even the best of chemistry can overcome the worst of stories. In recent years, however, the genre has struggled to find the same stride as it used to have, with the latest Bad Boys sequels and Shane Black’s The Nice Guys keeping it alive. Netflix’s Almost Cops, a take on the genre from the Netherlands, sadly proves a little too safe to even feel like a fun throwback.
Hailing from Gonzalo Fernández Carmona, Almost Cops centers on Ramon, a Community Service Officer in Rotterdam with aspirations of living up to his father’s legacy as a local police hero by keeping his neighborhood safe and clean. Ramon suddenly finds himself paired with Jack, a H๏τheaded detective demoted to CSO after his partner is killed and his attempts to investigate cause strife with his bosses. However, when they realize they both had connections to the late detective, they decide to team up and find the people responsible.
Almost Cops Plays It Way Too Safe With Its Comedy
This Is One Of The Tamest R-Rated Movies I’ve Seen In A While
While the likes of Bad Boys and Lethal Weapon have shown that an R-rating often leads to greater hilarity and action from the buddy cop genre, the Rush Hour movies and Martin Lawrence-led National Security have also showcased how to make effective use of the PG-13 limits to have some fun. So, it’s kind of disappointing just how in the middle Almost Cops is when it comes to how safe it plays, even with its mature rating.
There are very few memorable conversations between the characters, and many even feature references to better properties within them.
The dialogue certainly strives to be for older viewers, but doesn’t do so in any meaningful ways. It just adds in profanity for the sake of appealing to those looking for an R-rated comedy without necessarily doing anything funny with it. Some of the visual gags similarly fail to create belly laughs or land on either side of the spectrum, whether it’s borderline Sєxual harᴀssment (with an officer frequently walking around the locker room ɴuᴅᴇ to others’ chagrin, but with the camera staying far above his waist), or pursuit scenes featuring the occasional oddity that doesn’t necessarily do more than elicit a chuckle.
Most of the film’s attempts at humor fall to the mismatched dynamic between Ramon and Jack, the former of whom is depicted as an upтιԍнт, rule-abiding do-gooder, while the latter is his exact opposite, apart from their goals in life. This kind of relationship is old hat for the subgenre, but it isn’t done in any kind of way to entertain here. There are very few memorable conversations between the characters, and many even feature references to better properties within them.
Almost Cop’s Story Is Way Too Predictable
The Ending Can Be Guessed Without Even Watching It
Much like the jokes themselves, the buddy cop subgenre is one in which the story very rarely surprises anymore, with the lead characters typically getting their man and riding off into the sunset with one another. However, Almost Cops‘ plot proves to be one of the most egregious with how it sticks to the formula and delivers very few surprises with its plot. The simple setup of two very different officers coming together to investigate the death of someone close to them could have had some promise, if the people responsible weren’t so clearly signposted throughout the film.
Even from the movie’s opening moments, in which Ramon is daydreaming about stopping a bank robbery and being hailed as the “Best CSO” of his neighborhood, it’s very clear the ending will see the protagonist rise up for some kind of fight scene, taking down the villain himself. With the rest of the action scenes being without any major stakes and directed without any major flair or bombastic thrill, it’s even harder to be invested. Even a film like Damon Wayans Jr. and Jake Johnson’s Let’s Be Cops felt more memorable in its story, even if it was similarly predictable.
Jandino Asporaat Is Certainly Charming In His Leading Role
The Rest Of The Cast Fail To Impress
With the film primarily focusing on Ramon and Jack’s investigation and odd-couple dynamic, Jandino Asporaat and Werner Kolf certainly serve as our grounding point for it, which makes it all the more disappointing that only one of the two, Asporaat as Ramon, turns in a worthwhile performance. Kolf takes his task as the straight-man half of the comedy pairing a little too seriously with his stone-faced performance, while Asporaat nicely taps into Ramon’s quirks to make him an amiable protagonist.
It’s a shame that the rest of the Almost Cops cast similarly fail to deliver memorable enough performances to rise above their fairly one-note characters. Ferdi Stofmeel trots about as a humorous goof, but is unfortunately not humorous enough, while Mark Rietman doesn’t prove all that memorable of a villain in the film. Whether they were trying to deliver their own send-up of classic buddy cop comedies or what they thought to be a new take on the subgenre, the creative team behind the film really failed to capture my attention with this one.
Almost Cops begins streaming on Netflix on July 11.
