Kevin Smith changed the filmmaking game in the mid 90’s with indie hits like Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy and Jay and Silent Bob. He proved that it didn’t take big budgets or big stars to create big box office hits. He’s been writing and telling his stories his way ever since. His new project, Cop Out, starring Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan is a huge departure from the indie spirit that made him famous, but he says it was a move he felt like he had been being groomed for since he began watching movies as a little kid in Jersey.

Tell me about Cop Out.
Basically, it’s the story of these two cops, Jimmy and Paul, longtime partners who wind up having to chase after this stolen baseball card. So that Jimmy, played by Bruce Willis, can pay for his daughter’s wedding. Along the way, they run afoul of this burgeoning Mexican mafia in Brooklyn, and they find this woman in the trunk of a car. There’s a lot of intrigue and whatnot. It’s weird. It was so strange working on a film where people would flash badges and pullout guns and everyone once in a while, someone would have to be like, “This gun’s clean or gun check.” Gun check? On a Kevin Smith film? It was weird.

This movie is unlike any other project you’ve worked on in the past. How did you get involved with it?
When they approached me [writers and executive producers John and Mark Cullen] I was like, “do you want me to re-write this or something because it’s pretty funny, and it doesn’t need any help.” And they were like, “No, we want you to direct it.” I was like, “Dude, I don’t do that. You’ve seen my pictures. I direct what I write.” They said, “No, I think Zach and Miri Make a Porno was a big step up for you, and I think if you took that sensibility and that look and that craftsmanship and put it onto this script, I think we might have something.”

Had you ever even thought about making a film of this genre, a buddy/cop movie?
This was totally like the buddy/cop movie I would have written if I ever would have thought about writing a buddy/cop movie. Like Dante and Randall (from Jay and Silent Bob) as cops. When I was a kid, that’s all I watched, those types of movies. Like I was raised on a study diet of big studio fare before I found indie film. Lethal Weapon, Beverly Hills Cop, The Last Boy Scout, the Die Hard films, all those movies in the ‘80s, the big bombastic ‘80s, kind of cop movies. Suddenly, cops were like the most interesting things on the planet, not the ones in blue mind you, they were all in the background, but the ones in plain clothes, the Mel Gibson ones. So that was a genre I knew really well.

So you felt somewhat prepared when presented with the opportunity to direct this movie?
When you’re watching that your whole life you’re not thinking I’m training to do this one day. You never in a zillion years imagine it, but when it suddenly presented itself, it was like whoa man, this is interesting. I mean, I had fifteen years worth of tools necessary to know how to make a flick, marry that to an affection for and lifelong connection with the study of this particular genre, it was worth a shot. I thought I might be able to handle this.

Cop Out is rated R for language, violence and brief sexuality. Email me your favorite Kevin Smith film at trivia@reelcriticstv.com for a chance to win a pair of movie tickets to the Studio Movie Grill! For all of this week’s new movies and more of your favorite celebrities, check out my show Reel Critics on Time Warner Cable Video On Demand under the North Texas Programming Tab.