DVDumpster: Police Patrol

By: Nik S

Kid's movies are almost synonymous with bad taste, with a few exceptions. It seems everyone who decides to make a movie targeted at children try to make it cheap and write it as if their target demographic has rocks for brains. Police Patrol, Ploddy the Police Car Makes a Splash, or Pelle Politibil går i vannet seems to fall somewhere right in the middle of all that. It's a movie that you can tell was made cheaply but had some time put into most of it, and a semi-coherent story that's bogged down with dumb jokes and nonsensical dialogue. It's not the worst animated kid's movie, but it's certainly far from grace. Most of this might be due to the rough  English voice acting and translation, as Pelle/Ploddy/Radar is originally from Norway, but I'm not entirely convinced that's the case.

There's little to nothing on this movie on the internet that I could find. From what I could gather the main character (let's just call him Radar, since that's what they called him in the version I watched) is based on Pelle Politibil. Pelle Politibil is a fantasy figure made by Åge Magnussen, a policeman, as a part of the road safety work for children in the mid-1980s. He started off in a radio show called Childhood of the Largest (roughly translated) on the NRK radio, and eventually got popular enough to have his own books, TV, tours, and movies. The cartoon movie was released in 2010 by a Norwegian team called Neofilm for about $2 million (or 15 million Norwegian krone). They had a few recognizable Norwegian actors and comedians as their voice cast, but the American release wasn't as lucky. I couldn't find much on the distributors and publishers, other than they were Nordisk Film and... Phase 4 Films? The people who distributed The Dependables? I might have to look into why this company is always tied to movies I have a hard time researching.

Sadly my copy only had French and English dubs, so I wasn't able to listen to the original version. On the bright side, this is the first movie I reviewed for DVDumpster where the main menu was actually animated instead of a still-shot. 

The movie starts off with short credits about the cast and crew (minus the English voice cast) as tire marks screech across the screen and police sirens go off. We then cut to an ugly little seagull who is trying to fly through a nasty looking rain storm. We see Uncle Richard, a local police officer, trying to walk through town without getting blown away. We cut to a man watching soccer and the Chief Constable on the phone with a princess, as well as a ship heading towards the harbor when the power cuts off on them.

You'll notice almost immediately that the graphics and animation are... alright, but not great. It's like someone watched some early 2000 Nickelodeon cartoons like Back at the Barnyard, Jimmy Neutron, and Fanboy and Chum Chum and used those as a reference. Characters are either weirdly proportioned, like the chief who has a big head and a round body, but skinny arms and legs. The children in this movie are the absolute worst, as it's almost guaranteed that anyone who looks at them will have nightmares.

I can feel its eyes watching my every movement.

So in comes our hero, Radar a Volkswagen Beetle police car. He's responding to Uncle Richard's cries for help. He comes across some first responders trying to fix the power line when he offers to give them a ride. They have to get up to the fallen wire which is at the top of the cliff. Radar doesn't seem to follow his early career's advice of road safety and almost falls off of the side of the road that, for some reason, don't have any guard rails. Well, he's able to take everyone up to the fallen wires and they're able to restore all the power back to town. As everyone claps and cheers, they're unaware of another fallen wire that Radar backs into, shocking him to the point he defies all the laws of gravity.

Radar is carried by three electricians off to a garage to be looked at the most depressed looking doctor I've ever seen. Also, you did read that correctly that three men carried a 4,000-pound car from a cliff to a garage in town.

The doctor/mechanic (honestly I'm not sure what to call him, he dresses as a doctor but he fixes cars) declares to a worried Uncle Richard that Radar is dead due to his engine no longer running. Well, the main character is dead within the first five minutes time to wrap up this review.

I'm sorry, Richard, but he's gone.

Oh, wait, dang it. Turns out Radar ISN'T DEAD, but is now an electric car that no longer needs gas to run. Insert my sarcastic "yay" here. He occasionally sparks blue when he gets emotional but otherwise is completely normal for a talking car. We then immediately jump to everyone in front of the police station cheering on Radar. The Chief Constable decides to promote Radar to the rank of special investigator, which according to Uncle Richard is "like a detective." The chief immediately strips Radar of his newly bestowed rank when he gets shocked by the cars new power source, and tells him that he's on leave until he can control his electricity.

No one knows what it's like to be the cop car, to be electric, behind blue headlights.

The next scene starts up the next day with Radar somehow fishing in the local lake, and Uncle Richard relaxing with him. We're then introduced to our villains driving into town, the Badger Brothers, who are here to scam the town out of a natural resource and sell it back to them. The shorter older brother, who looks like Phineas from Phineas and Ferb if he shaved his head and grew an evil goatee, is the one in charge with his younger brother, a high pitched Slenderman reject, doing most of the legwork.

Now, can you try and guess what natural resource the Badger Brothers want to take and con people into buying back? Is it:

A) Trees/Wood

B) Rocks/Ore

C) Water

D) All of the above

If you picked C, congratulations you were paying attention to what I wrote earlier about the original title.

We cut back to Radar and Uncle Richard when he gets a call about a disturbance in town. Uncle Richard rides off on his bicycle while Radar sulks and continues to fish. This is about the point where I was telling myself "alright, this seems like a basic kid's movie. The plot's a little dumb and overdone, and the voice acting is horrendous. I don't see why it was in the dollar section though." That's when I was introduced to the worst children's movie character of all time, Dottie the Otter. Never, and I really do mean never, have I ever been so annoyed by a character made for children.

I despise everything about this character: how she moves, talks, interacts, and exists. It's like the writers were inspired by Finding Nemo to have a silly sidekick who easily forgets things and does her actions based off of emotions. Though somewhere in the middle of it they royally messed it up. Dottie can't remember a single thing she's told for more than a third of a second, and she jumbles up her own sentences. Her voice sounds like nails on a chalkboard, and how she moves seems very unnatural. 

She tries to convince Radar to go for a swim, but he reminds her that cars can't go in the water. They decide to do a water vs land race to see who can make it to the other side the fastest. It's decided between them that the loser has to eat a live worm, to which Dottie starts chanting "I'm eating the wo-orm!" They dash off to get to the other side, and Radar's animation here is actually... decent? Yeah, it's not half bad, as his turns seem smooth and that a lot of time was put into how his model can move like a car. It doesn't last long, as Radar flys off of a small hill and right into the water.

So instead of helping her friend in distress, Dottie decides to find a worm, taste it, and then force feed it to Radar. She still doesn't understand that Radar can not swim and that he could die (again) if he sinks into the water. He tries to use his police radio to no avail and then begs Dottie to go find Uncle Richard. She marches off but keeps on repeating every word that Radar told her (and I do mean every word). He's saved, deus ex machina, when a small earthquake happens and the water in the lake slowly goes down. Dottie returns, accomplishing nothing, and notices that there's a lot less water in her lake. Radar is able to escape and leaves to go to the station to tell Richard and the chief what happened.

Before Radar can say anything to the chief, Richard pulls in with a gigantic police SUV.

Richard, you cheating son of a...

The chief bought the new police car in order to impress the princess during her visit this week. While the chief is gushing over the new car, Radar informs Richard what happened with the lake and tries to convince them to let him back on the force. The chief says if he can prove himself as a special investigator then he'll allow it.

They try out a mock mission that Radar absolutely bombs because his electricity sparks out illuminating him. Chief scolds him and hops back into his shiny new car and drives off. Feeling defeated, Radar heads back to the lake to clear his mind. He meets back up with Dottie, who is about to get sucked down a whirlpool in the middle of the lake. As she gets sucked down the whirlpool Radar tries to find where the drain is going to. Turns out there's a cave below the lake and a factory that is bottling the water. It seems the Badger Brothers want to bottle the water and sell it back to the townspeople for a high price.

Radar informs the rest of the police squad, and they meet up with the brothers at the docks where they are shipping away a few shipments of water. The older brother convinces the chief that they are not doing anything illegal as they paraphrase a law in a law book. The brothers also convince the chief that they will give the water away for free to the townspeople... which lasts for like two minutes because a few scenes later they're selling them to a horribly written rap. Radar tries to convince everyone not to buy the water, but they're so thirsty.

Radar goes back to the lake to find it's all dried up, and that there's now a giant plug in the middle. It starts to rain heavily, and the lake starts to fill back up. There's another cheap "oh no! Radar can't get out of the lake" moment. Dottie, again, tries to convince Radar to just jump in the water and swim to which he caves in and does.

But much to my dismay it turns out that Radar can float. Dottie decides to try and teach Radar to swim and they go around the lake a few times. They run into a random dam that seems to be poorly constructed as some water is leaking through it. Radar drives to town and tries to inform the town about the wrongdoings, but everyone thinks he's just crying wolf. Radar tries to convince the chief to look, but he's too convinced that the Brothers aren't up to anything. He convinces them to a race up to the dam, to which Radar loses because he almost falls off the same exact spot in the beginning. Radar tries to use a shortcut to beat the new SUV but gets caught on a tree branch.

Again, the Badger Brothers are able to convince the chief that they're not doing anything illegal. They say that they can build the dam legally and that they are expert dam makers. Radar, along with Dottie, observe the dam more closely and find out that all they did was put tape over some of the holes. While they try to take a picture of the hole, the Badger Brothers are taking photos of them to make it look like they're sabotaging the dam.

Radar attempts to go to the chief, but it seems the Badger Brothers got to him first. Again, they convince him that Radar is sabotaging their business to which he believes them. The chief then fires Radar and makes him turn in his police Radar. Uncle Richard finds out shortly after the the confrontation with Radar and argues with the chief that it was a dumb decision (then cries in the middle of the street). There are a few seconds to where the animation here just gets choppy. I'm not sure if it was the rendering, or if they didn't notice it while editing, but Richard's movements seem to really dip in framerate.

After being fired, Radar decides it's best if he just leaves town, being trialed by Dottie (a fate much worse than losing your job). It cuts to that night and Richard has been told by the chief to guard the dam. Richard sees that the dam is being held together by tape and tries to tell the chief who basically ignores him because he said the words "Radar was right." Radar has a little pity party with Dottie and decides to go off on his own again to try and prove that the Brothers were up to something. On his way there he's intercepted by the Brothers and their machinery and taken away to their secret lair.

Uncle Richard stumbles upon the secret cave and is able to free Radar. The two get into a quarrel as Radar feels betrayed and Richard feels like he's not being respected. The argument is entirely out of the blue and doesn't feel at all warranted. The Brothers overhear them and chase after them in their gigantic semi truck. Once they're outside, Radar and Richard are able to give the brothers the slip by hiding under a tarp in a rundown shack.

While this is happening, the chief is getting the horrifying looking children ready to play instruments when the princess arrives. The children are worried about Radar and start complaining that he's not there. Off in the distance, the dam slowly starts to break apart and everyone runs away.

It's at about this point you'll notice an extreme dip in animation quality. The graphics stay the same, but how the characters move and talk just seem different. It's like the studio ran out of money and just decided to wrap it up as cheaply as they could. Richard and Radar corner the brothers on the dam, which is crumbling away with some goofy looking animation. The brothers escape on a conveniently placed raft while Radar goes over the dam. Hanging by his tires, Dottie (who randomly shows up) and Richard try to help Radar up. Dottie takes a rope from Radar and ties it to the plug in the middle of the lake, while Richard dangles from a giant hook from a construction vehicle to grab Radar.

Radar plummets off of the dam and unplugs the lake while Richard holds out his arm and screams the car's name. To my dismay, again, Radar is just fine and lands in the town which is completely flooded. Also, while this is going on the princess randomly shows up and gets stranded due to the flood. The machine that was bottling the water explodes from too much pressure and having the Brothers get sucked into it. Radar then swims around town and rescues all the townspeople, the chief, and the princess and brings them all to dry land. The people cheer again, and the chief reinstates Radar to the force as a special investigator. 

The film ends with Radar and Richard being called off for them to investigate a possible crime against the environment, and Dottie meeting an annoying male version of herself and they swim to see who has to eat a live worm. The Brothers have been bottled up and are floating out into the ocean, arguing about whose fault this all was and the movie just ends.

So, all-in-all the movie wasn't terrible, but it still wasn't enjoyable. The voice acting, in the English version at least, was just some of the worst I've ever heard (up to this point in DVDumpster). The biggest thing that could have made this movie more tolerable was getting rid of Dottie entirely, as she's not even needed to move the plot forward. She's only important at the end to tie the rope around the plug, and that's essentially it. You already have a talking car, it doesn't need a quirky animal sidekick. Let's just hope this is going to be the last Phase 4 movie for a while now.