A Cop Movie
Netflix | Release Date: October 20, 2021 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
76
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 14 Critic Reviews
Positive:
12
Mixed:
2
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
The PlaylistCarlos AguilarMar 5, 2021
Far from being copraganda, A Cop Movie, the new feature from director Alonso Ruizpalacios (“Güeros,” “Museo”), is a formally daring and incisive deep dive into their performance of authority. Read full review
90
VarietyPeter DebrugeMar 5, 2021
At times, A Cop Movie seems unnecessarily convoluted in its structure, but by the end, the brilliance of its design becomes clear: This is nothing short of an existential inquiry into what it takes to be a cop. Read full review
83
IndieWireEric KohnMar 5, 2021
Director Alonso Ruizpalacios’ exciting and unpredictable look at a pair of Mexico City police officers blends documentary and narrative techniques to deliver a refreshing and innovative look at the challenges of modern-day police work — as well as the underlying corruption that makes the most earnest officers vulnerable to a system rigged against them. Read full review
80
Paste MagazineNatalia KeoganNov 5, 2021
A Cop Movie is artistic activism at its finest, carefully treading the line of fact and fiction in a manner that illuminates rather than obfuscates. Read full review
80
The New YorkerRichard BrodyNov 5, 2021
Along with its trenchant, revelatory depictions and discussion of police work and related political ills, A Cop Movie pulls these hidden vectors of image-making, opinion-shaping power to the fore. Read full review
80
The GuardianPeter BradshawOct 28, 2021
It’s a movie bristling with ideas and ingenuity. Read full review
80
Screen DailyAllan HunterMar 5, 2021
The layering of styles and perspectives provides a sympathetic insight into the motivations and real life experiences of police officers working within a fundamentally corrupt system. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comGlenn KennyOct 20, 2021
A Cop Movie, directed by Alonso Ruizpalacios, is exceptionally challenging to begin with. As the movie unspools, and the layers of its production become clearer, we understand the challenge is the movie’s entire objective—up to a point. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineChuck BowenMar 9, 2021
Alonso Ruizpalacios voices a profound sense of powerlessness on the part of the police without sentimentalizing the abuses and biases of the profession. Read full review
70
The New York TimesBen KenigsbergNov 5, 2021
Ambitious, heady and distinctive, if easier to admire in theory than engage with moment to moment, A Cop Movie has a conceptual strangeness that’s difficult to overstate. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesRobert AbeleOct 21, 2021
The blurring of real testimony with a compassionate filmmaker’s inventions is so compelling that when the documentary portion arrives, the movie can’t help but sink a bit. Read full review
67
The Film StageDavid KatzMar 16, 2021
A Cop Movie is too gentle to rouse new disdain for an institution currently subject to such piercing critique. It chooses to make the self-consciousness about its subject matter into a twee form of guilty self-awareness, when what’s needed is bitter medicine, or just insights that better challenge our moral certainties. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubVikram MurthiOct 20, 2021
Aside from the Mexico City setting, it doesn’t really accomplish anything unique either. A Cop Movie feels in the end like, well, a cop movie, only with an eye for society instead of the unit. That’s not enough to separate it from the pack. Read full review
50
Movie NationRoger MooreNov 15, 2021
A Cop Movie is a slick exploration/explanation of Mexican policing. But as the style drifts from first-person, dash-cam point of view “reality” to a laughably generic foot chase through the city and onto the subway, it becomes obvious that believing what we see and hear is meant to matter here. And the gimmicks undercut that too many times along the way. Read full review
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