"To Catch a Cop" is a Jerry Lewis movie during the actors absolute worst comedic period. After all, around 1980, Lewis returned to film after nearly a decade...only to produce the most awful comedies of his career...or practically anyone's. While I like much of his work, "Cracking Up", "Slapstick of Another Kind" and "Hardly Working" are just painfully unfunny and awful. In the midst of this period, Lewis also made a couple French films, including "To Catch a Cop". Is it a aberration or just another comedy bomb from this period?
The story begins with Jerry arriving in Paris to visit his ex-wife and her new husband. It soon becomes obvious that the new hubby hates Jerry and you aren't sure if it's mutual or Jerry is just antagonizing him by accident. What follows is practically plotless and you wonder what the new husband is involved in...whether he's a crook or a cop or something else. Jerry is curious, too, as back in Las Vegas where he lives, he is a policeman.
There isn't a single laugh in this film. In fact, if I didn't know better, I'd think it was a drama. I noticed that the other review for this talks about the funny fat guy on the diving board scene...and I thought it was terribly overdone and unfunny....and they kept repeating the gag again and again. In fact, that is the pattern here....when they try to do something funny, they do it repeatedly...showing nothing in the way of subtlety nor timing. A great example is Lewis trying to stuff a body in a trunk. It's an unfunny thing to begin with, but to have the legs keep popping out again and again (accompanied with silly sound effects) was terrible and unfunny. Overall, very tedious but at least it isn't "Cracking Up" or "Slapstick of Another Kind" bad!
By the way, you might assume I hate Lewis but during this same period, he made some amazing good films...they just weren't intended as comedies. "The King of Comedy" and "Fight for Life" are both exceptional 1980s dramas....and much of it is due to Lewis' ability to handle non-comedic roles. I just wish during this period he'd stuck to drama, as the comedies were a very, very sorry and unfunny lot.
