Directed by Kevin Smith. Starring Bruce Willis, Tracy Morgan, Kevin Pollack, Adam Brody, Seann William Scott 15A cert, gen release, 110 minutes

IN THE right film, Bruce Willis can be a pleasure. As a washed-up boxer in Pulp Fiction, a cop in Die Hardand even a time-travelling mental patient in 12 Monkeys, Willis is funny, charming and even powerfully stoic. In the wrong film, however, he can look bored, grouchy, and embarrassed. Cop Outis one of the wrong films.

Boasting a strong supporting cast (including sparky Seann William Scott) this could’ve been an amusing, exciting film. But, apart from casting Willis and Scott, Cop Out is a rap sheet of terrible decisions.

For a start, Kevin Smith’s direction is flat and listless. The car chases aren’t good enough for a subpar TV show, and the tone is all over the place: Super-broad jokes jostle for attention alongside a standard police procedural and nasty moments of violence. The film can’t seem to decide whether it’s a parody or celebration of 1980s buddy movies.

As if being poorly staged and mercilessly unfunny wasn’t enough, it’s also the most convoluted comedy in some years, with about half-a-dozen plot strands and subplots, including the case of a stolen baseball card, an impending family wedding, a missing car, a stolen flashdrive, marital infidelity, a feisty burglar and rival detectives.

What Smith doesn't seem to realise is that Eddie Murphy's characters in 48 Hoursand Beverly Hills Copwere smart, not morons, and that the '80s buddy movies he loves were made with panache and discipline. Frankly, Smith hasn't made an unequivocally good film since Chasing Amyin 1997.

It’s sobering to think that the former firebrand has never really evolved as a film-maker, and that he may never make a good film again.