Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.0

Cop-Out Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov October 22, 2018

Pierre Rouve's "Cop-Out" (1967) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Lorber. The only bonus feature on the disc is a gallery of trailers for other titles from the label's catalog. In English, without optional English SDH subtitles for the main feature. Region-A "locked".

Cool

The following bit of information is important and later on I will bring it up again to explain why: after purchasing the rights to Georges Simenon’s novel The Strangers in the House Pierre Rouve adapted it and directed Cop-Out in 1967, which was exactly one year after he had produced Italian master Michelangelo Antonioni's first English-language film, Blow-Up.

James Mason is John Sawyer, a retired prosecutor who is slowly drinking himself to death in his lavish Victorian home. He has a good excuse to do so -- after many missed opportunities to repair their marriage his wife has left him, and now the only way to silence the voices in his head that are routinely reminding him that he has failed to be a good husband is to drown them in aged whiskey. On top of this, the old man is also openly disliked by his daughter, Angela (Geraldine Chaplin), who prefers to spend her time in the company of her rowdy mod friends and isn’t afraid to say in his face. Excluding the occasional fake pleasantries, the two barely speak.

But when one of Angela’s friends turns up dead in the Victorian house and her boyfriend, Jo (Paul Bertoy), becomes the prime suspect in what the authorities believe is a murder case, the old man is slowly forced out of his alcohol-induced lethargy. As a group of local detectives begin to dig deep into the case, John becomes convinced that the reconstruction of the murder is profoundly flawed, and eventually decides to prove in court that Jo is not the killer.

The complicated murder case that is the central piece of this film is a ruse that is utilized to accomplish two things. First, it allows Rouve to fracture the narrative and through multiple flashbacks intentionally change its tone and atmosphere. This is done while the flashbacks are supposedly filling in important gaps that ought to provide a more complete picture of Angela’s activities with the mods, but in reality, they shift the focus of attention away from the murder case. Second, in the present, the old man’s recovery and renewed relationship with his daughter also gradually overshadow the murder case, so his character transformation becomes a lot more interesting to observe than the revelations that are produced during the investigation.

The above concept, which provides the film with multiple identities, is copied from Blow-Up, which also uses a murder case as a ruse to ‘see’ an evolving new culture and ‘feel’ the vibe that it promotes. However, Rouve, who was closely involved with the production of Blow-Up, falls short of transforming Cop-Out into a time capsule that preserves authentic material. Indeed, all of the flashbacks where the film is supposed to capture the spirit of the era feel like colorful clips from a carefully staged period production in which all of the main characters remain actors who are acting their parts.

The soundtrack features some cool original music by Patrick John Scott and Eric Burdon and The Animals (“Ain’t That So”), but the film could have benefited from a much bigger and more diverse selection of ‘60s top tracks.

Cop-Out Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented in an aspect ratio of 1.67:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, Pierre Rouve's Cop-Out arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Lorber.

I don't have any technical details to share in our review, but it is very clear to me that the film was transferred in high-definition fairly recently. Naturally, it has a pleasing organic appearance, with some areas actually looking quite good. However, overall it is a fairly inconsistent remaster. There are larger segments where some light but noticeable background color flutter sneaks in, and elsewhere density levels fluctuate with a consistency that becomes somewhat annoying. Furthermore, there is sporadic shakiness within the frame that easily could have been eliminated with modern equipment, and tiny white dots and flecks routinely pop up. The good news is that despite the different shortcomings that highlight above, the film still has a pleasing organic appearance. (Note: This is a Region-A "locked" Blu-ray release. Therefore, you must have a native Region-A or Region-Free player in order to access its content).

Cop-Out Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There is only one standard audio track on this Blu-ray release: English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0. Optional English SDH subtitles are not provided for the main feature.

While free of any serious age-related abnormalities, the audio could have been used some optimizations to improve stability and dynamic range. Also, occasionally some of the dialog scatters in multiple directions rather quickly, so unless the volume is turned up high it is possible to miss a few words here and there.

Cop-Out Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Trailers - a collection of trailers for other titles from Kino Video's catalog. A vintage trailer for Cop-Out is included. In English, not subtitled. (7 min, 1080p).

Cop-Out Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Cop-Out is neither a faithful adaption of Georges Simenon's novel that inspired it nor the attractive chameleon it could have been. It is clear to me that Pierre Rouve conceived it while copying the concept behind Blow-Up, which he produced a year earlier, but he did not possess any of Michelangelo Antonioni's vision and talent to craft a memorable time capsule. To be honest, I did not think that it is a bad film, and I did not dislike it, but considering some of the big-name actors that made it the end result should have been vastly superior. RENT IT.