“Are you from the precinct?”
“We’re from hell baby”
After loving The Nice Guys (2016), I was in the mood for some more (good) buddy cop movies. In browsing through Netflix I came across War On Everyone, which didn’t strike me as a comedy based on it’s Netflix promotional photos but more of a seriously toned drama. So when I got 60 seconds in and I was watching a mime being run over I had to quickly readjust to what I was settling in for.
War On Everyone follows the immensely driven asshole cops Bob Bolaño (Michael Peña) and Terry Monroe (Alexander Skarsgård) who are back from suspension after assaulting a fellow (racist) cop. The pair are as corrupt as they come robbing criminals, taking drugs, accepting bribes and so on. In doing so they become tangled up in
Outside of being the worst police have to offer, there’s not much more to these two. Bad for bad’s sake and its hard to believe these morons ever wanted to become police officers in the first place. Never mind actually hold down the job after hearing and seeing some of the things they get up to throughout the film. If you do manage to suspend disbelief (congratulations are in order) there are a couple laughs to be had but I found more jokes fell flat. The one that sticks to mind is Bob and Terry’s boss bluntly stating he was married to a ‘chink’, it’s not clever it just relies on you being utterly bewildered at the blunt racism. I will admit the dinner scene the pair have with Theo James’ character (the villain, I forget his name) was pretty funny but that’s only a couple funny lines out of 100 minutes worth of dialogue.
Speaking of dialogue, the film is also extremely talkative as far as cop movies go, more time discussing backstories and setting up villains in the first half hour than is necessary. Yet despite all this talking I still didn’t feel like caring for any of the characters so I find the film really achieved nothing. It didn’t entertain me with action nor have me route for our anti-heroes in their quest.
When you finally get some action you’re disappointed its just a simple sucker punch. Or Bob and Terry walking into a crime that’s already happened. Then when some actual action starts, its an unimaginative foot chase through public areas where the public look completely uninterested that two cops are exchanging gunfire with a criminal. It’s really difficult to get yourself on board when you don’t care about the characters and the extras mimic that sentiment.
If you love your cheesy one-liners and you can stomach the erratic pacing I wouldn’t write this off. Put it on in the background if you’re really struggling to find something on Netflix. But it’s just not my thing and after the cleverness of The Nice Guys or the spectacle of the Jump Street series I struggled to find redeeming qualities for War On Everyone. I wouldn’t lose sleep if you told me you hadn’t seen this film, its as unimportant as movies get.
Rating: 3.9/10
Film Crawler 