Under the direction of Jon Watts was premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, the Cop Car movie, just that same year I was able to see it, however, with the passage of time I forgot most of the film, and I only had a good feeling of having seen it, so when today they passed it again on TV, I decided to take a look again, and so write about it. Here I go.

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Year: 2015
Category: Road, Thriller.
Director: Jon Watts
Cast: Kevin Bacon, James Freedson-Jackson, Hays Wellford, Camryn Manheim, Shea Whigham.

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Plot

Travis and Harrison with only 10 years run away from home. Little by little they walk until they find a cop car abandoned in the field. They ride on it, and Travis finds the keys. Innocently they decide to drive it and that's where the true adventure of this couple of friends begins, because Sheriff Kretzer had not really forgotten his car, but was solving some suspicious matters while the two children run into him. From this moment the sheriff will begin the search for your car and what is in your trunk.

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Opinion

The film proposes a juxtaposition of the universe of children with that of adults, done in a brilliant and highly credible way, so that the candid and naive childish gaze is opposed to a cloudy, violent and aggressive gaze of adults, who lie to achieve their goals. It is an agile and efficient story, where screenwriters are precise most of the time.

I liked the minimalism with which the plot develops, it uses this resource to form an objectively linear story, but one that has a lot of dramatic substance. At first, we have no idea what has happened before the events we see on the screen, but with the development of characters we began to form a past that justifies everything that happens.

In the movie almost all the characters are morally damaged. Even the kids, who are innocent in the circumstance, who just stole a cop car and are playing as if nothing were going to happen, disregarding the punishment that will surely come. Many things do not happen in the film, since there are no elements that appear out of nowhere and make up the plot. What happens is what could happen. This sense of realism is associated with the director's need to keep everything in a minimalist setting.

The story is constantly changing point of view, putting us in the place of children in some scenes, and passing the Bacon in others, making us participants in their conflict despite knowing in advance that it is unethical things, and It is a clearly unpleasant character. As for children, although what they do is clearly wrong, we can come to understand the feeling of frenzy that can be had when finding something as exciting as dangerous, with the unconsciousness of childhood that prevents us from seeing things are really. And is that a police car abandoned in the middle of nowhere can not bring anything good.

The script helps to establish some children doing things they would be able to do at such a young age, and the sheriff character gives him a mysterious point that intensifies his threatening presence. The film did an excellent job of choosing James Freedson-Jackson and Hays Wellford, the young actors who bear most of the weight of the action. Two children with no previous experience who, in the last analysis, demonstrate a prodigious naturalness before the cameras, are not at any time unbearable. Not only are they authentic in their complicity, but they also perfectly accompany an interpretation teacher such as Kevin Bacon, of whom we already knew how well he embodies this type of dark characters.

In spite of all the good things, the film lacks some twist, some surprising element that makes it really memorable, because there are many moments in which you can anticipate what will happen. In general, the film leaves a feeling that the plot could have been exploited more without losing the minimalist sensation sought. That may be why the film ends in a not very surprising way, although it can not be considered bad either, given that the director finally manages to leave us with a hard heart, and because despite these weaknesses, the film has rhythm, it entertains, It is well directed and its actors carry out their work with solvency, from the two boys to Kevin Bacon.

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Trailer