Directed by Gonzalo Fernandez Carmona, Almost Cops is a lighthearted and entertaining comedy that would remind you of the Rush Hour franchise. It is the story of an honest community service officer, Ramon, who goes on a quest to find the men who murdered his younger brother, Kevin. Ramon encounters many obstacles on his journey, but somehow he manages to surmount them all. So let’s find out what happened in Almost Cops and if Ramon was able to find the people who murdered his brother.
Spoiler Alert
Why was Jack demoted to CSO?
Jack and Kevin worked at the CID, and they were part of the same team. Where Kevin was very serious in his approach, Jack was known to make a lot of goof-ups. He was the kind of guy who was not at all serious about his work and we saw him ordering food while they were sitting in their surveillance van and keeping an eye on smugglers. During the same mission, Jack spotted a few teenagers whom he believed to be working for the drug syndicate. He went after them, breaking protocol and not giving Kevin an opportunity to call for backup. They were able to catch two boys named Youssef and Moussa, but the rest of the gang was able to make a narrow escape. The good thing was that they had captured the drugs, but their boss, Daphne de Koning, was still not happy with what they had done. She knew that they had risked their lives by not following protocol, and she told Kevin that she expected better from him. Kevin and Jack were sitting in their van having a chat with each other. Just then, a car, out of nowhere, came and hit their vehicle. A group of thugs killed Kevin on the spot and, for some reason, left Jack alive. When Jack came back to his senses, he realized that he had lost his partner. De Koning told Jack that he would have to pay for his carelessness, and that the death of his partner was on him. He was demoted to a CSO (community service officer), and moreover, De Koning made sure that Jack patrolled alongside Kevin’s half-brother, Ramon, who was a proud CSO officer. Jack, for the first few days, couldn’t understand how to face Ramon, and moreover, he felt embarrassed being a part of the unit that couldn’t even make formal arrests and where the officers weren’t even given a real weapon.
What had happened to Ramon’s father?
Ramon wanted to make his father proud, because he knew how courageous he was and how he would have wanted him to carry out his duties with all honesty. Ramon’s father was killed by robbers during a bank heist. He could have easily stayed out of it and saved his neck, but he felt that it was his responsibility to stop the robbers, and so he decided to single-handedly stand up against them. Maybe even before he took out his weapon, he would have known what the outcome would be but still he went on and stopped the criminals. While taking his last breaths, he gave his necklace to Ramon and asked him to keep it with him always. Ramon held onto that piece of jewelry. Ramon was proud of his younger brother too. He knew that Kevin was a good cop and that he was doing some good work in his field. I believe Ramon felt pressured at times, as he just wanted to live up to the expectations his father and brother had of him. It seemed as if Ramon never savored his life; he never lived how he wanted to, but only dreamt of doing something so great that his family would be proud of him. CSOs were, anyway, not given the status of law enforcement officers, and were looked down upon by the people. Some called them cleaners, some hurled abuses at them, and they were insulted almost on an everyday basis. Ramon wanted to break that image and, for once in his life, do something courageous, just like his father.
Who killed Kevin and why?
Jack joined the CSO, but he just couldn’t stop himself from trying to find the people who could have murdered his partner. Obviously he felt guilty, and he blamed himself, but he also wanted to find the man who ordered the hit so that in the future no honest cop would ever lose his life like that. On the very first day of his job, Jack triggered something inside Ramon. He hurt his ego, and Ramon decided to find the people who killed his brother, even if it meant putting his own life at risk. Jack’s boss, De Koning, scolded him, as she had sent him there to keep Ramon safe, not to put his life at risk. She said that if anything happened to Ramon, then Jack would lose his job. Jack tried stopping Ramon, but the man was just not ready to listen to anybody. They got to know that the Bukhari family was involved in smuggling drugs and that they could have been behind Kevin’s murder. But Yasmina Bukhari, the head of the family, wasn’t the one who had murdered Kevin. Jack and Ramon got to know that their consignment was stolen by some other gang. Ramon’s colleague, who was also his love interest, Dilan, told him about a man named Smits and how he was infamous as a drug kingpin. Jack and Ramon pinned down the drug mafia, only to find out a harrowing truth. It came to be known that Kevin was a corrupt cop who was working for Smits. Smits told Jack and Ramon that Kevin was his best man, and it was through him he got all his intel, and so there was no reason for him to kill the man. Jack and Ramon were once again stranded in the dark, but then somebody tried to kill them by throwing a hand grenade at them. Jack suspected that his boss had something to do with Kevin’s death. That was because whoever killed Kevin knew exactly where he was going to be that day. Jack wanted to investigate more, but before that, he and Ramon were abducted by none other than Jack’s colleagues from the CID: Guido, Lizzy, and Juan. It came to be known that it was Guido who had pulled the trigger and killed Kevin on his boss’s order. He said that he had to do so because Kevin all of a sudden wanted to be a whistleblower, and his conscience didn’t allow him to be a part of the corrupt setup. Guido threatened Jack and Ramon and told them that he was going to kill them too. But fortune favored them, and Jack and Ramon were able to free themselves and overpower Guido, Juan, and Lizzy. Guido was able to make a near escape, but Jack caught hold of Lizzy and Juan, who were taken into custody by the police later.
Were Jack and Ramon able to find the drug kingpin?
Ramon had gotten to know, at the end of Almost Cops, that Jack was Kevin’s partner and that they both were together when Kevin was shot. Ramon was very angry at him, and Jack didn’t know what to do or how to make him understand his perspective. It was just a coincidence that Ramon figured out who the mastermind of the entire conspiracy was and for whom Guido was working. So after Jack and Ramon were caught by Guido, they came to know that they were wrong in suspecting De Koning, as she didn’t have anything to do with the drug cartel. Guido very vaguely said that he worked for people who were higher up the food chain. Ramon, while talking to one of his colleagues in the CSO, realized that the billionaire businessman, Richard, owner of the Van Der Vloed enterprises, was always present at the scene whenever they went after a probable suspect, and started to think he could have had a role to play in Kevin’s murder. Ramon’s speculations were not wrong, as when he reached Van der Vloed Tower, which was under construction, he found Richard together with Smits and Bukhari.
Before he could do anything, he got caught by Guido, who was also present at the scene and brokering the deal. It didn’t take long for Jack to figure out where Ramon could have gone, and so he also went there to rescue him. Richard wanted a truce between all the drug dealers so that they could earn profits and run their own empire without making enemies out of each other. Guido killed Smits on Richard’s property, as he wanted to blackmail the rich businessman to give in to his demands. Guido knew that he was knee-deep in the swamp, and apart from running away from the others and changing his identity, he didn’t have any other option. He knew that only a person like Richard could help him do that. But that negotiation was stopped when Jack and Ramon arrived at the scene. They engaged in a fist fight, which ended when Guido fell from the building and lost his life. Then Ramon was able to overpower Richard, and the police came and took him into custody. It all ended well for Jack and Ramon, and they developed a strong bond that at the beginning nobody would have imagined. Jack was offered to come back to CID, as his boss was quite impressed by his work, but guess what? The man decided to be in community service itself. He had found a friend in Ramon, and he didn’t want to part ways and go back to his old job. Ramon, on the other hand, was able to express his feelings for Dilan, and the entire CSO team surprised him by throwing a party for him. More than anything else, I believe that Ramon felt proud of himself, probably for the first time in his life, and he knew that if his brother and father had been there, then they would have been proud too.
