Movie Review: 'Clone Cops' Falls Short of it's Comic Potential

Clone Cops

Directed by Danny Dones

Written by Phillip Cordell, Danny Dones

Starring Quinnlan Ashe, Ravi Patel, Steve Byrne, Laura Holloway, Henry Haggard

Release Date January 31st, 2025

Published February 6th, 2025

Clone Cops is a deeply confused movie. On one hand, the film is a broad violent comedy satire of gaming culture. On the other hand, the film features an earnest portrayal of a group of people fighting for their lives and not finding this situation remotely funny. The tonal disconnect is, I assume, intended to create a dark comic vibe but the performances never match up. Some characters are in a broad dark comedy and others don’t know what movie they are in and come off confused and perturbed.

Co-screenwriter Phillip Cordell takes a prominent role in Clone Cops as the titular, Clone Cop. All of the cops in this future world are based on one super-cop, who may or may not have just been a guy playing a cop in a popular gaming or TV series? Regardless, he’s now been cloned hundreds of times as part of a popular internet gaming series where his clones, wearing bizarre Lego head style masks and engage in combat with a group of terrorists, all for the amusement of an audience watching live on the internet.

This game has existed for years with a guy named Frank (Henry Haggard) as the top protagonist of the story. Frank is a scientist who creates the clone cops and sends them into battle with the terrorists. Frank is undefeated in creating clone cops who can kill at will. However, Frank finds himself under pressure from his bosses to make his clone cops more entertaining. Sure, watching them commit the violent murders of supposed terrorists is fun, but where’s the razzle dazzle? The owner of the company, played in a cameo by Ravi Patel, thinks Frank is losing his edge.

This leads Frank to try and alter his clone cops to be more dramatic and entertaining, a move that backfires because they appear much dumber and prove easier to kill. And on that front, the people battling the clone cops are a terror cell that features a mother-daughter team, at odds over whether the daughter is ready for a real fight. And a pair of mercenaries, one a master of guns and explosives and the other, a master of up close combat. The group is then joined by a new guy who is suspiciously eager to enter the fight, and seemingly impervious to being shot at. When things begin to go bad for our terrorists, they immediately look to the new guy as the reason why.

You see, the ‘terrorists’ aren’t really terrorists. I don’t dislike Clone Cops enough to spoil it so I will leave it at that. It will become clear if you watch the movie that the real bad guys are the ones not referred to as terrorists. The film takes the side of the terrorists early on and reveals that they are trapped in a long running battle against a corporate army that has taken over as a private police force and a toy/gaming company that uses a game of killing 'terrorists,' as a marketing vehicle for toys and games.

That's rich ground to work for dark comedy and occasionally, the film finds the right tone for a laugh or two. Sadly, the tone fails to unite the story of the broadly evil and goofy bad guys and the self-aware seriousness of our terrorist characters, an earnest group of survivors, with occasionally broad comic qualities. The film sets up a dramatic arc between the mother, daughter, and the second in command of the cell, and the payoff of this is oddly dramatic and deeply unsatisfying. The earnest attempt at drama, and to be clear, it's an attempt that comes off as labored and failing, clashes with the goofiness of Clone Cops in giant lego heads getting repeatedly blown up and blown away.

The constantly clashing tone of Clone Cops grew exhausting for me. Frank Haggard and Phillip Cordell are playing a broad comedy that isn’t quite as funny as the movie seems to think it is. And the terror cell is playing at dramatics that don’t work because the actors don’t appear committed to it. The actors in the terror cell appear to be waiting for a broad comic premise that never arrives and come off as stranded amid the dramatic conflict of the mom and daughter, especially after Mom gets shot and spends the rest of the movie on the brink of death, even offering a dramatic, deathbed monologue.

The movie is marketed as a bizarre, futuristic comedy but the film isn’t funny enough to leave that impression. It’s a different movie from the goofy posters featuring the oversized masks covering for the fact that the Clone Cops are supposed to be copies of the same guy. It’s weird and there is potential in weird, but the potential of Clone Cops is never fully realized. The film ends on a tease for a sequel but that’s a whole lot of wishful thinking. I’m glad the people who made Clone Cops felt confident about their movie, but that confidence is, much like the potential of the movie, unrealized.

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