Some people think if you see a funny looking fat guy on a movie screen and he says "9-11," you've got the start of a rip-roaring joke, or at least a great sight gag. Obviously, Michael Moore did not originate the cinematic recipe of bombs + comedian = wonderful fun. Amid his milieu of constant anarchist urban bombings, and against the backdrop of his colleague Harold Lloyd being permanently maimed by a humorous-looking special effects movie explosive a few months earlier, Buster Keaton took advantage of his high-rolling fame to exercise a lot of bad taste for a short that only runs 18 minutes. The main character of COPS is a delusional sociopath, and the only thing he does right during his 18 minutes of fame is to turn himself in to the authorities in the closing frame. I suppose it is possible to look at a piece of film only for its technical merit, but since Keaton has 30 surviving features and shorts, I see no reason requiring one to overrate COPS while ignoring its unsatisfying story and its anti-social elements. Charlie Chaplin's Tramp may have resembled COPS "young man" in many respects, but he was full of heart--not of the devil!
Review of Cops
