First Hit: Just didn’t work.
Nick (Ryan Reynolds) is in love with his wife.
He’s a Boston Police Detective and gets tempted to steal some gold they find on a drug bust. He confronts his partner Hayes (Kevin Bacon) about the “rightness” of this. Hayes doesn’t want Nick to turn in the gold so he shoots his partner. Nick dies but ends up with other dead law enforcement officers who are living in this “other sort of world”.
In charge of this group of these dead officers is Proctor (Mary-Louise Parker). Why does this group of R.I.P.D. officers exist? To fight crime of people who really haven’t died and who attempt to make havoc on the world as it is.
Nick gets assigned to a new partner named Roy (Jeff Bridges) who has such a forced accent that it is nauseating. He was wronged just like Nick so there are here to work together to fight the undead. What makes it even worse is that people in the real world see Nick as a old Asian man and Roy as a voluptuous blond.
This story is such a reach and then to add that Hayes is one of these characters who are collecting enough gold to reign havoc on the world is simply an out-of-bounds reach. It is a stupid story although amusing at times.
Bridges is mediocre in this role and his accent is horrible. Bacon is the most amusing and interesting character in the film – his darkness prevails. Reynolds is stuck between a rock and hard place in this role and my guess he wishes he never took it. Parker is the best part of the film; her tongue in cheek approach was fun. Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi wrote this mindless script and Robert Schwentke directed it, and I’m not sure why.
Overall: A couple of laughs but overall a real waste of talented actors.