COP CAR (2015)

It’s funny how some films just slip by and let’s all be thankful for company’s who do ‘buy two get a third one free’ sales because I’m sure there are many of us who found gems amongst films we would never have bought otherwise.

This film is one of those. Would I have ever bought a bluray of a film called ‘Cop Car’? Probably not, but was I surprised by the little gem hidden in amongst the whatever-the-other-two-movies-were’? 100% I was. It has its issues, but it is solid except for a few minor criticisms.

Cop Car was directed by Jon Watts, from a script written by him with Christopher Ford and Kaden Selvidge, and tells of two young boys, Travis (James Freedson-Jackson) and Harrison (Hays Wellford) who have decided to run away from home. They don’t take the roads though because they don’t want to be seen, so they cross farming properties until they end up in the Colorado wilderness.

What they find though is, the titular cop car abandoned and after some deliberation, they decide to take it… without thinking about how it got there… and how it got there is the crux of the tale.

Sheriff Kreuzberg (Kevin Bacon) was the one who left it there whilst he was disposing of a dead body into a well deep in the wilderness, one of two dead bodies in actual fact, but why are they there? What nefarious shenanigans has he been up to and what exactly are the boys going to do with a stolen cop car, a bunch of police weapons, and a body into the trunk?

I was pleasantly surprised by this film. I didn’t know what to expect and that benefited my viewing of it. I love a movie where the characters, especially if it’s all of them, slowly paint themselves into a corner. This story starts with the runaway boys already starting that painting by running away with no plans, and it just gets worse, and for everyone involved. This script has all this tension but one of the issues is you don’t feel it, even though you really should. I think the pacing may be the issue. I’m not sure why the tension doesn’t work, but it’s certainly not the acting.

The young men playing the boys are fantastic in their roles: sure, being a kid and playing a kid can seem easy because you can draw from your own experiences, but neither of them drop into annoying kid category and the stupid decisions they make that don’t help their situation is exactly the sort of dumb stuff kids do. There’s no Wesley Crusher genius or Anakin Skywalker naturally talented. They are just two kids thrust into a situation of their own doing and the conclusions they make are what a child of their ages would potentially come to.

As you would expect, Bacon is the real winner in this film. His manic cop-up-to-no-good character is almost like a cartoon version of this type of character, and his mannerisms throughout make it almost comical, but the underlying threat is what stops that from happening. It’s a different role for Bacon I feel and you can feel the tension every time he is on screen.

This is certainly an interesting character piece and when you add other characters played by Camryn Manheim and Shea Wingham, you have a solid foundation for an interesting thriller that is exciting, but also, is just missing something to stop it from being great. Honestly, I. can’t put my finger on it, but there is just something absent that stops this good movie from being one I can wholeheartedly recommend.

Extras: There is one extra on this disc and it is a selection of behind the scenes footage which is fun, but would probably mean more as a memory to the cast and crew. There is some Small snippets of interesting information here but it is not a deep dive into filmmaking. If anything I learnt what the different sirens on a cop car are called.

Film: 6/10

Extras: 4/10

Rewatchability: 5/10

This film was purchased from JB Hifi