Review of Cop Car (2015) by Cronlee — 02 Dec 2015

One of my favorite movies of the last five or ten years! Novel concept and great writing (both plot and dialogue) - great acting, especially by the three leads (the two kids and Bacon); first rate soundtrack by a unknown to me rock band (usually these suck in indie movies: here the music works with the film and doesn't get in the way) - and wonderful photography. (Spoiler alert) A sort of Alfred Hitchcock cum Stephen King approach - two young boys out walking out in the boonies to the local stream stumble across a seemingly abandoned cop car, and eventually take it out for a joyride. But it wasn't abandoned - evil Sheriff Kevin Bacon had temporarily left it while trying to dispose of a body, but ran into difficulties with the disposal, so got delayed, tired out, took a cigarette break, then slowly walks back to his cop car to get the second body he needs to get rid of .... and the look on his face when he sees his cop car isn't there is a priceless piece of acting (and filming) ....

The plot just goes on from there, logically and = for once = unpredictably.

Despite its overall excellence, what really grabbed me was the acting of the three main characters. I have never seen Kevin Bacon so good: this is Oscar level acting. And the two boys are SO true to life re typical around 7 to 9 year old kids. I am a piano teacher, and teach and have taught a lot of boys this age, and the writer just NAILED the way boys this age act, think, and talk. I have it on DVD, and have seen it three times in the last two months. The third time was when I noticed how excellent the music and cinematopgraphy were, by the way.