The new found respect the outfit entails is exactly what Ryan has been looking for, and after studying YouTube videos of police procedure and buying a used cop car off eBay, he drags a reluctant Justin along on their new "career" as LAPD officers.
Tropes
- A Lady on Each Arm: How Mossi is introduced in the movie.
- Abhorrent Admirer: Annie is this for Justin, who's also taken for. Ryan, on the other hand, basically fell in love with her.
- All Women Are Lustful: One of the things the guys have to deal with is a Cat Fight because one of the sorority sisters cheated with another sister's boyfriend. Josie pretty much throws herself onto Justin when she got a chance to, prompting him to back off and claim that things escalated too quickly, and let's not even get into Annie.Annie: If that little guy wasn't here, some seriously weird stuff would be happening right now.
- Ax-Crazy: Kasic is completely out of his tattooed gourd.
- Bad Boss: Everyone hates Kasic, according to sources. He even punches the nose of one his guys.
- Bait-and-Switch: Justin (Who's disguised as Pupa) fights a man in Mossi's compound and defeats him. Mossi himself brings Ryan, making the viewers think that he's going to off him because of his different looking face and for beating a potential ally to his gang, but just loudly yells "Who's next?!" to the crowd, apparently impressed that "Pupa" has defeated a guy in a kickboxing match.
- Brick Joke: Justin jokes early in the movie that he'd like to meet the "6'1 Chinese guy" who could fit his "Officer Chang" uniform. As they leave the Mossi bust near the end, they pass by said 6'1 Chinese guy. Also named Chang.
- Brief Accent Imitation: Ryan unconsciously imitates Pupa's accent.
- Becoming the Mask: Ryan very quickly starts to believe he's a real cop. In fact, the ending sequence sees him become a cop for real!
- Buddy Cop Show, except, y'know, they're not really cops.
- Bullying a Dragon: Justin and Ryan have their revenge on the people who hit the latter's car, but were unaware that they are members of the Albanian mob.
- Cat Fight: Justin and Ryan attempt to break up one of these. They fail. Miserably.
- Dirty Cop: Detective Brolin is Kasic's partner, and the head of the LAPD's organized crime unit.
- Dragon Ascendant: Mossi caps his boss Brolin when Ryan convinces Mossi that said boss would sell him out for a lighter sentence.
- Dude, Not Funny!: In-universe. This is the policewoman's reaction when Justin tried to explain to her that he and Ryan were joking when they decided to be cops.
- Faux Affably Evil: Mossi may seem like a fun, wisecracking crime boss, even mockingly asking his men if the “cops“ bought them a doughnut, but underneath his jovial attitude lies a vicious psychopath who boasts that "he" is the law in Los Angeles. Lampshaded by Seagers when he talks about him to Ryan.
- Foreshadowing: During some payback on Kasic Mossi’s men in the pizza restaurant, 2 of them are seen with a doorway in the restaurant’s basement which Ryan briefly takes notice of before ordering them to join their buddies outside. It’s later revealed to be a tunnel that leads to Mossi’s compound.
- Mossi’s men are seen loading black crates to put into his compound while Brolin is discussing Justin and Ryan's police status to Mossi, who tells him to lay low until he finds out what the two "cops" really are. Said crates are loaded with confiscated weapons from the LAPD, which Brolin himself is head of as the detective of the organized crime unit.
- Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: None of the gangsters in the movie can shoot worth a damn. Neither can Ryan or Justin— though to their credit, they know this, and mostly only shoot to provide covering fire for Seagers to escape.
- Impersonating an Officer: The basic premise of the entire movie. Justin and Ryan acquire realistic LAPD uniforms from Justin's 'Patrolman LA' video game presentation pitch, and Ryan later buys a used police cruiser, decals and a sergeants patch on eBay.
- Intoxication Ensues: Justin, after getting "cranked out" (smoking meth) twitches excessively and suggests they build a porch.
- Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: Attempted and failed miserably by Ryan and Justin. Their attempt to waterboard a perp consists of saran-wrapping him to an ironing board and lightly spraying his face with the hose from the kitchen sink.
- Jerkass:
- KASIC.
- Also Todd, Justin's arrogant boss, absolutely refuses to take his video game pitch seriously. In the third act, mobsters attack him in the middle of his game pitch, and, thinking it's part of the pitch, is finally sold on Justin's idea.
- Karma Houdini: Ryan and Justin appear to suffer little to no consequences for impersonating police officers for weeks. In fact, Seagers helps get them off the hook, though it's justified in that they saved his life and also helped take down a very dangerous criminal
- Loser Protagonist: Two of them.
- Megaton Punch: After going to Kasic's party and getting roped into a fight with someone, Justin finds himself on both sides of one. He gets hit, then he hits back. Surprisingly hard.
- Mirthless Laughter: Mossi's boys laugh nervously when they inform their boss that "cops" stopped them from acquiring the pizza restaurant Joise works at, punching the bald headed Albanian gangster in the nose before ordering them to find those "cops".
- The Mole: Pupa becomes one after he's kidnapped by Ryan and Justin, then liking them and Justin's video game.
- Mr. Fanservice: Mossi is not unpleasant to look at.
- Ms. Fanservice:
- Josie, played by Nina Dobrev.
- Annie (Natasha Leggero), whose apartment is used for some spy work. She's totally not on ecstasy.
- Mood Whiplash: The last half of the movie dispenses with most of the comedy and becomes a more serious cop flick.
- Oh, Crap!: Ryan is shocked to learn that the detective of the LAPD's organized crime unit who will be seeing the evidence on the Mossi case is Brolin, the same guy who was talking to Mossi during the stakeout on his compound.
- Ridiculously Average Guy: Again, two of them!
- Ruthless Foreign Gangsters: Mossi Kasic and his crew are Albanian and scary as hell.
- Sliding Scale of Beauty: Josie would be world class, with several people noticing how attractive she is.
- Stockholm Syndrome / Lima Syndrome: Pupa is a low-level Mook that Ryan and Justin kidnap to "interrogate". They end up sharing a beer and playing video games with him instead, and he takes enough of a liking to them to tell them everything they need to know. Pupa even sticks around to become Ryan's informant when the latter joins the police force for real!
- Suspiciously Specific Denial: Annie, upon meeting Justin and Ryan. "I'm totally not on ecstasy!"
- Tattooed Crook: Kasic and Pupa. Subverted in the end when Pupa becomes Ryan's hired informant.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Seagers delivers a brief but powerful one in the middle of the third act.
- Those Two Guys: The protagonists.
- Toplessness from the Back: Josie when she takes off her dress while Justin is trying to confess he's not a real cop. He gets too Distracted by the Sexy to do it.
- Villain Respect: Mossi himself is impressed that Pupa beat up a guy at a kickboxing match in his compound, unaware it's Ryan who dressed up as him to find out that the black crates had confiscated LAPD weapons and that the pizza restaurant had a tunnel that led to his compound.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Seagers partner Jackson, who disappears after they first scene, and doesn't even get brought for backup in the climax.
- Wrestler in All of Us / Suplex Finisher:After getting a firm grip on Justin, Jaquandae performs a textbook back-suplex on him, right through a table.
- You Watch Too Much X: A neat villainous example, delivered by Detective Brolin to Ryan.Brolin: Now, I'll ask again: who are you?Ryan: I'm the guy who's—Brolin: "The guy who's gonna take me down." You've been watching too many movies.Ryan: Yeah.[Beat]
