In the sort of directorial apprenticeship now standard in Hollywood, this modest thriller earned director/co-writer Jon Watts the Marvel reboot of the Spider-Man franchise. Cop Car‘s plot is a clever enough elevator pitch: two mischievous 10-year-old boys take a cop car for a joy ride, unaware that it belongs to a sheriff (Kevin Bacon) who’s just committed a murder. You can see what caught Marvel’s eye, as Watts economically utilizes a shoestring budget and a barebones script to craft a pretty tense little thriller. It’s skillful filmmaking – for Watts, a mere prop like a beer bottle can be valuable as both a time stamp and a geographic place marker.
That said, aside from some subtext and symbolism about the effects of poor parenting, Cop Car‘s ambitions are simple. The film is relatively exciting, credible enough for you to suspend disbelief, and features a fine performance from Kevin Bacon (and an even better supporting one from Shea Whigham). Unfortunately, the two boys, whom we spend most of the film’s runtime with, are pretty annoying. Any film starring child actors has to accept that, regardless of other potential merits, it lives or dies on whether or not you would avoid these kids if they were your little cousins on Thanksgiving. I would avoid these kids.
It doesn’t help that the boys speak in vulgar clichés and seem to lack even a 1st grader’s sense of the world at large. These flaws are evidence of screenwriters who don’t realize that just about all kids are smarter than adults expect (especially when confronted with dire situations). Nonetheless, beyond the irritation factor, Cop Car is a fun exercise in lean suspense.
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