MisterWhiplash While this doesn't feature too many of the mind-blowing and death-defying stunts that Buster Keaton was known for - don't get me wrong, there are a couple, one involving a small bomb that Buster uses to light a cigarette before discarding in front of some cops, and there's a bit with a ladder that he gets stuck on between two sides of cops after him - it's an excellent example of making comedy out of a chase. A lot of people will say physical comedy would be nothing without the chase sequence, and it's in that in mind that Cops is essential viewing.It's not a chase through the whole film, and the majority of the cops of the title aren't there until halfway through; this is actually about Buster trying to impress a girl by becoming a 'good businessman', and how he does that is use a (ahem) wallet he happened to lift, sort of accidentally, from some town mayor, and uses the money to help out a family moving their stuff over town. He (sort of) helps pack up a cart and has to go with the horse across town. Not necessarily easy, one sees, when the horse is slow as hell. Maybe some goat gland therapy (?!) will do the trick, and maybe too well as case turns out.The reason to see this isn't for the story and Keaton and co-director Kline know that, so it's really jam-packed with energy: seeing Buster run, even at the sped-up film speed, is exhilarating, especially when seeing how it's choreographed with the hundreds (I'd say that's a fair estimation) of cops chasing after Buster once he happens upon a city-wide cop parade. There's always time for a gag where Buster hides in a trunk (or gets caught in one), and how he manages to slip out and keep moving may be ridiculous, but there's always some logic to it, whether it's more cartoonish at times than others.I think the key thing with Cops is that we're fully on Buster's side, though the Cops of the title make for splendid foils and characters for Buster to play off of; when he is being chased by one cop, he tries to hide behind another cop directing traffic, and the cop hits the other instead of Buster. Classic move, and yet while we're often told to respect the police and be nice and yada yada, Keaton knows that with him in the lead there's no way we don't want to see him f*** with them at least a little. It's a joy to behold how this man acts and directs this, leading up to an ending that might almost be bittersweet if it wasn't all so perfectly silly.

gavin6942 A series of mishaps manages to make a young man get chased by a big city's entire police force.This is not my favorite Keaton film, or even my favorite Keaton short. It is not quite on the level of "One Week", for example. But it still has some of those great physical gags that Keaton was known for (the see-saw on the fence is vintage Keaton).There is some question over whether or not the dynamite is a reference to Harold Lloyd. I have my doubts on that, but who knows? Either way it is interesting to have an anarchist in the plot. Audiences today (2015) may not fully appreciate how ubiquitous stories of anarchists were when this film came out, and it was actually a timely joke.

st-shot Buster Keaton packs an awful of laughs into this 18 minute short with some topical and subversive slapstick that at times reaches epic proportion.Buster once again finds himself rejected by a sweetheart who feels it doesn't have the right stuff to be a wealthy businessman. Disconsolately he sulks his way down the street benignly relieves an ungrateful detective of his cash then gets conned into buying someone else's furniture which he puts on horse drawn wagon and rides off with. The worst is yet to come however when he is suspected to be a bomb throwing anarchist attacking a police parade. Keaton eluding a virtual army of pursuing police makes for some of the best slapstick in silent film history. It is the mother of all keystone cop chases as he finds all sorts of ways to elude the waves of blue converging on him. Leading up to the chase there are little gems as well with Keaton and the detective and a concocted Rube Goldberg invention to ward off vicious dogs that instead floors traffic cops.While Cops glowingly achieves what it sets out to do, produce torrents of laughs, it is worth noting how Keaton subversively creates a world of hostility and corruption as an unsentimental backdrop. The ex is an unrepentant social climbing gold digger. The ungrateful detective is coarse and from the look of the roll Keaton relieves him of, on the take. A bomb throwing anarchist ( in an early example of racial profiling a Sacco-Vanzetti look alike), a slick con man, a vicious dog and even Buster himself who in the course of the film builds quite a rap sheet through misunderstanding displays an intolerant, exploitive society that makes Keaton final act in Cops resonate with a comic existential flourish.

dvdeugs I don't understand why this film is so highly considered. The first thing I noticed was the actors, who weren't expressive at all. The character who got his money stolen was almost deadpan. Even Buster Keaton seemed flat. I didn't find this film funny at all; it had light physical comedy, but not pressed to the extreme like good physical comedy, and no real social comedy. Comparing this film to those of Harold Lloyd, I don't get the sense of life or action that made Harold Lloyd's films of the same era so funny.