R.I.P.D. 4K 2013 Ultra HD 2160p

Good cops are dead cops, but they won't be out of a job in the afterlife, either. Every day, they're on the ground, looking for fugitives from hell. They don't wear black -- hunting demons is creative. They call themselves the Ghost Patrol.

R.I.P.D. 4K Review
Police officer Nick (Reynolds) dies in the line of duty - and he was shot by his best friend (Bacon), who involved him in a dirty business. But this is not the end of Nick's story, after his death he is recruited into the Ghost Patrol, service in which will give him a chance to slightly "clean up his karma" before God's judgment. Nick's partner becomes grumpy cop Roy (Bridges), chasing ghouls since the XIX century, and although at first Roy treats the newcomer with contemptuous condescension, Nick quickly proves that he is not a stranger - to attack the trail of villains planning to return to the world of the living hordes of the dead.

Jodie Foster was originally considered for the role eventually played by Mary-Louise Parker, while Zach Galifianakis was offered the role of Roy.
At the stage of the announcement "The Ghost Patrol" promised to be a very original and funny project - two lawmen from different epochs unite in the afterlife to give a kick to the dead guys. The trailer, however, was a little disappointing - the film looked like a shameless clone of "Men in Black" in which the two central characters were swapped (an elderly cowboy Roy became the main source of gags) and the aliens from the stars were replaced by the living dead. And even that replacement is purely formal - the eye-and-toothed baddies from here and the aliens from "Men in Black" purely outwardly seem to be twin brothers.

And then we saw the whole movie, and it not only confirmed the misgivings about "Men in Black," but also added obvious associations with Jerry Zucker's "Ghost" - the storyline with Nick, his girlfriend and best friend, a "werewolf in chase," is stolen entirely from that '90s hit. There's even an analogue of the episode in which Patrick Swayze talks to his lover by possessing a psychic played by Whoopi Goldberg - the peculiarity of the Ghost Patrol service is such that its employees get a new appearance, and Nick's "avatar" in communication with his girlfriend becomes a Chinese old man (James Hong).

However, one could turn a blind eye to the numerous borrowings - tentative and explicit - if Ghost Patrol turned out to be a fascinating and funny spectacle, but, unfortunately, it is not. For starters, Jeff Bridges and Ryan Reynolds stubbornly don't add up as a screen duo - while Bridges takes his own image from "Iron Grip" to the extreme absurdity (and there's a charm in that), Reynolds plays straightforward and, what's the harm, boring.

Second, "The Phantom Patrol" has surprisingly few really punchy gags, but there are a lot of ones that I would like to call pathetic - they make jokes, but nobody cares that nobody laughs at all. Third, the movie has monotonous and uninspired action. Action movie directors are supposed to be subtle composers of drive and turn the viewing experience into a skillfully orchestrated "roller coaster," but Robert Schwentke doesn't seem to like twists and instead clutters the screen haphazardly with special effects. And, by the way, his taste and sense of proportion occasionally betray him.

It would be premature to call The Phantom Patrol a clear-cut failure, but it is a dull, tired and downright crafty film that is either mediocre or bad. If it had been released at the beginning of the summer blockbuster season, it would have been completely forgotten about by its end, and a couple of years later it would probably become a regular at "Buy Three Movies for the Price of One" sales.