Ever since he burst onto the independent-film scene with Clerks in 1994, Kevin Smith has been lucky and successful enough to only direct films that he himself had written. However, after having his confidence shaken by the public’s middling reaction to Zack and Miri Make a Porno, he decided to test the waters to see what being a director-for-hire would be like. As he quickly found out, this decision to cede some power didn’t mean that his experience would be a walk in the park, as he encountered resistance from both his star Bruce Willis and the studio (which buckled to pressure from advertisers and wouldn’t allow him to release it as A Couple of Dicks). Interestingly enough, all of the details about these behind-the-scenes skirmishes came before we even got a chance to see footage from the film, now titled Cop Out. But now, after watching this paint-by-numbers trailer, we fear that the most compelling thing about the film just might be the controversy about the title.
