21 Jump Street

21 Jump Street (Phil Lord and Chris Miller, 2012)

A pair of underachieving cops are sent back to a local high school to blend in and bring down a synthetic drug ring.

This Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum picture reboots the buddy cop series of the same name that aired during the second half of the 1980’s. Those two losers are paired together after being at each other during their high school years. Channing Tatum being the handsome popular guy who succeeds in sports and physical activities while Jonah Hill the geek that has the grades. After getting to the Police Academy together they end up as partners. Since they are fresh from the Academy they are thrown undercover to a High School and they must find the source of a new drug and stop the proliferation. In the process, they have a second chance to live again those years that were great for Jenko (Tatum) and very difficult for Schmidt (Hill).

Even if the recipe has been done an ‘nth times, the pairing of Tatum and Hill is pretty efficient and many gags are very well handle. There is a real effort done in the writing here and the relationship between both characters is better than most vulgar comedies. In general, the overall comedy of the 2000’s and 2010’s is almost uniquely populated by penis jokes and scatological references. Well, there are some here but is not as Judd Apatow as we are used to.

Being in the age target of the film I got all the popular references and the blinks at the films that forged the genre. Honestly, I thought it was a very funny movie and even if some jokes were easy I think that it is an assuming film in its genre and it is not a game changer but a very dynamic comedy that succeeds in its modest goal. It is important to recognize the reach and the essential presence of this kind of movie that mock the stereotypes of odd couple or buddy cop film. Just look at what Top Secret did back when it came out. It is still considered as one of the greatest comedies of all time.