2 out of 5

Directed by: Quentin Dupieux

I will unabashedly defend the non-films of Dupieux, inspired by their black humor and sense of hopelessness to wax on about the genius construction of film and music and narrative experimentation.  And while ‘Rubber’ and ‘Wrong’ certainly shared a similar tone and construction, the vision of each was unique enough to look forward to Quentin’s next project.  When the first ‘Wrong Cops’ short hit, I was admittedly a bit dismayed.  Because it was boring.  These were undoubtedly Dupieux characters, speaking past each other like no one else exists in the universe, and featuring his quirky 70s trashy film indulgences, but the material just felt flat.  His previous projects were concepts that formed vague stories, into which these odd inhuman humans were stuck, not really responding to events so much as acting like pieces of the set which could speak.  ‘Wrong Cops’ seemed to strip away any pretense of a narrative and just let the natives roam free, though programmed as they are to their one setting there really wasn’t too much to say.  And unfortunately, expanded to (or pieced together as) a full length, the 90 minute Cops doesn’t really change this notion, except to break up the ‘action’ a bit by hopping between characters.  There’s maybe something super, super meta going on here, with the wiki plot description – ‘In the not very distant future, where crime has been completely eradicated, a group of crooked cops look to dispose of a body that one of them accidentally shot’ – almost not at all discussed or mentioned in the movie.  Sure, there’s a shot guy, and yes, there are talks of disposal, but… well.  No.  That’s the end of the sentence.  Everything just is in Wrong Cops, and this does actually work for laughs in fits and spurts, and there are some select moments where elements of a film peek through, the way the ending comes together, the final ‘revelation,’ – along with Dupieux’s still impressive handling of his visuals and music, nailing the lazy digital vibe – but instead of bopping along curiously like his other works, the movie just seems spread way too thin.