I had steered clear of Let’s Be Cops partially because I wasn’t that interested in the premise—a couple of guys impersonate cops and get into comic hijinks—but I was interested enough to where I didn’t want to spoil the jokes.  It was part of a 20th Century Fox’s Comic-Con presentation, so I couldn’t avoid it any longer, but now they’ve piqued my interest.

Hit the jump for my Let’s Be Cops Comic-Con panel recap.

The moderator brought on actors Rob Riggle, Keegan Michael Key, Nina Dobrev, and Damon Wayans Jr.  Jake Johnson is the co-lead with Wayans, but he couldn’t be here because he’s in New Orleans shooting Jurassic World.  However, we did get an amusing video message where we see him lounging in a hotel room and strongly implying he just paid for kinky sex.

We’re told that the movie is based on a true story about a guy who impersonated an officer to pull pranks.  Wayans and Key joke that while the impersonator got off light, “They would put us under the jail.”

Panel Highlights

There wasn’t time for a Q&A, so the moderator asked each panelist for one good story from filming:

Wayans: There’s a hardware scene in the trailer, and the sweaty, fat guy doesn’t have a thong in the final film.  He’s completely nude, and was sliding up Wayan’s face.  “I saw out of his mouth,” says Wayans.

Dobrev: “Let’s be real.  It’s a boys’ movie.  I’m the girl,” says Dobrev.  But every day there were the guys were doing something stupid, she says.

Key: His character is Jamaican so he put on a Jamaican accent all the time, and the first scene he did with Johnson and Wayans had them saying for ten minutes, “Dude, we cannot understand you.”  There’s also a scene where he was kind of getting waterboarded, but wasn’t sure, so they kept filming.  “So, that was hilarious,” deadpanned Key.

Riggle: Getting to work with my friends was appealing, but he also wanted to play a kind, pure-hearted character.

Footage

Comedy trailers are tough because it’s really about collecting jokes, and this trailer is just a showcase of the various shenanigans the main characters get into.  I’m still not entirely sure what the actual plot is.  All I know is what I knew before I saw anything: guys wear cop costumes, guys get into funny situations.  All I know now after seeing the footage is that the comedy mostly works.  Hopefully that’s the case for the full feature.