Kevin Bacon's Underrated 2015 Crime Thriller With A Wild Premise Is Streaming For Free

Kevin Bacon is easily one of the best living American actors who's yet to receive an Oscar nod. He's won two SAG Awards (one as a member of the "Apollo 13" ensemble, the other for his leading turn in the TV movie "Taking Chance"), but, looking over his filmography, I can't think of a time he was ever seriously in contention for an Oscar nomination. Certain prestige projects have intended to put him in the running (e.g. "Murder in the First," "Sleepers," and "Where the Truth Lies"), but those movies all received meh reviews.

If we lived in a just world where everyone had exquisite taste, the remarkably versatile Bacon would have three nominations: one for his winning portrayal of the graboid-battling handyman Val McKee in "Tremors," another for bringing seven layers of sleaze to the role of Sergeant Ray Duquette in "Wild Things," and a third for his Jerry Lewis-esque turn in "Where the Truth Lies." He can play just about anything: a nice suburban dad, a lovably clownish redneck, a psychologically tormented prisoner, and the dirtiest of dirty cops.

Take, for instance, his work as Sheriff Kretzer in Jon Watts' indie action flick "Cop Car," which is currently streaming for free on YouTube Movies. Bacon's eerily comfortable in the skin of a corrupt law enforcement officer who's driven out to the middle of nowhere to dispose of two drug traffickers after a cocaine deal went bad. This could be the premise for a lean-and-mean neo-noir, but Kretzer isn't the twisted protagonist of this film. The heroes are actually a couple of runaway kids who steal his cruiser while he's off giving one of his victims a lime bath. But what starts as a wild joyride for the youngsters soon turns into a life-or-death chase across rural Colorado.

"Cop Car" centers on the ill-considered adventures of two maybe 10-year-olds named Travis (James Freedson-Jackson) and Harrison (Hays Wellford). They speed off in the cruiser and, at first, have a total blast gunning down a mostly open highway (though they do almost run a woman off the road). However, police dispatch is quickly informed that there are two kids careening around the country in a stolen cop car, which forces the dirty Kretzer to order all deputies off the main channel so he can communicate directly with the boys.

There are unexpected complications along the way, most notably Travis and Harrison discovering that they're lugging the tied-up, still living dealer (Shea Whigham) who was to meet the same fate as his partner. This fella is just as bad for the boys' health as Kretzer, though, so that places the boys in a heckuva predicament when the sheriff locates the stopped cruiser on the side of the road.

At a brisk 88 minutes, "Cop Car" is a taut, well-directed action-thriller. Evidently, it impressed Marvel Studios and Sony Pictures enough for them to even hand Jon Watts the reins to the first "Spider-Man" movie trilogy set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe To this end, "Cop Car" does, at times, feel like a calling card movie, but Kevin Bacon is so delectably evil that Watts' lack of narrative invention doesn't bother you. It's Bacon's show, and a reminder that he can do damn near anything if given the opportunity.