Jon Watts' debut feature, Cop
Car, is the model Midnight movie. Lean, bare-bones filmmaking full of
energy, dark wit, and over-the-top performances, it speeds along like a muscle
car souped up on nitro. This is "genre" done right, and for about 30
minutes the film is as good as other recent gritty genre efforts like The Guest and Cold in July.
Unfortunately, it's an 80-minute movie and the distance proves too great for
the thin plotting to cover.
Two precocious trouble-making
boys (James Freedson-Jackson and Hays Wellford) are joyfully cussing their
way through a Colorado town after running away from home. Between vulgar jeers
we figure out that one kid is a little more rebellious than the other; one
can't be convinced to say the dirtiest of all dirty words despite the lack of
parental oversight. He's also the one who is reluctant to take the abandoned
cop cruiser they happen upon for a joyride. The keys are in the ignition; the
doors are open; it's ripe for the picking. Plus there's a bottle of beer
sitting open right there, and the boys have played enough video games to know
how to drive a real car. Of course they steal it, whooping and hollering up and
down the rolling hills with sirens blaring. Uh, so who does that car actually
belong to? And won't he be a little pissed off?
Shooting well past "pissed off"
and into "exploding rage" territory is Kevin Bacon as the cruiser's
owner, Sheriff Kretzer; a wiry broom-mustachioed officer with villainy practically
oozing from his pores. A flashback tells us exactly how the car ended up where
it was, and the reasons are nothing but bad news. He left it stranded while
taking care of some murderous business and something he desperately needs to
get rid of is still inside. The sheriff's instantaneous panic is both hilarious
and telling, with Watts and co-writer Christopher D. Ford deftly introducing
his personality with a bare minimum of dialogue. 
Clearly inspired by the darkly comedic
capers of the Coen Brothers, the film features an array of colorful small-town
characters doing really terrible things in funny ways. Kretzer scrambles like a
mad man to retrace his steps, while the boys find a stash of loaded guns and,
in the film's most tense moment, begin pointing them at one another playfully.
Dirty cops, guns, fast cars, and even a clueless moron (Camryn Manheim) should
make for a more enjoyable movie than Cop
Car turns out to be, but the
energy of the opening moments quickly dissipates. 
A big part of the problem is the
shapelessness of the story. The leanness that was such a benefit early on is
never fleshed out; leaving an empty void that should have been filled with just
a little character development. While Bacon's performance is just bonkers
enough to be entertaining, his sheriff never progresses into a villain to be
feared, and this is a film relying on the amount of tension it can deliver.
Watts' solution is to make every scene interminably long; much longer than they
really need to be. The previously-mentioned gun scene runs way beyond its
expiration date, dissipating any dread it managed to conjure up. Watts piles on
some ugly violence to compensate, but by then Cop
Car has long since stalled
out.
Rating: 2.5 out of 5
