“Point Break or Bad Boys II?”
“Which one do you think I’ll prefer?”
“No, I mean which one do you wanna watch first?”
Thus Danny Butterball introduces Nicholas Angel to buddy cop movies in Hot Fuzz.
There are a lot of buddy cop movies, running the gamut from serious to parodic, but even the serious movies never shake the comedy that springs from dissimilarities between the deuteroganist buddy cops.
Here’s five movies about buddy cops that I haven’t reviewed already.
Bad Boys (1995)
Will Smith and Martin Lawrence protect a witness (Tea Leoni) while trying to recover the results of a huge heroin bust stolen from an evidence locker.
This is the WORST buddy cop movie I’ve EVER seen, and that includes the geriatric editions of Lethal Weapon. While Will Smith and Martin Lawrence clearly have exhibited innate comedic talents in the past, Michael Bay applies them to an unfunny script with the stupidest switcheroo plot this side of Freaky Friday. This could have been a perfectly serviceable cop movie like Rush Hour or Lethal Weapon if only Will Smith and Martin Lawrence played halfway competent or reasonable characters instead of insecure, pompous, half-assed stereotypes! No wonder Danny Butterball proposed showing Nicholas Angle Bad Boys II instead.
Rush Hour (1998)
Detectives Lee (Jackie Chan) and Carter (Christ Tucker) are paired up – not to solve the kidapping case of the Chinese Consul’s daughter, as they might hope, but to keep each other out of trouble. Displeased at their assignments, they get on the case anyways.
This is the only Rush Hour movie in which Chris Tucker still feels the urge to act like a competent cop, instead of making himself out to be a racist fool reliant on Jackie Chan’s acrobatics. After this, Chris Tucker clearly started rolling in the dough and dialing down his acting efforts in favour of bulging-eyed racist tirades.
Luckily his performance is subdued enough to minimize the most outrageous facets of his character that would be revealed in sequels, and he provides a wisecracking ambient dialogue for the detective’s exploits. Jackie Chan plays himself again – in line with most of his Hollywood roles, he is the duty-bound, serious cop, though he also displays a paternal side when interacting the Consul’s daughter and inquiring as to whether or not she has been keeping up with her martial arts practice: “Have you been practicing your eye gouges?”
Altogether, Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan make up one of the best comedic duos of the last two decades, although their schtick is “one’s Chinese and one’s black.”
Point Break (1991)
Johnny Utah (Keanu Reeves) joins the FBI and is assigned to a case with old-timer Angelo Pappas (Gary Busey) to investigate a string of bank robberies by the “ex-presidents”, who are suspected to be surfers behind their rubber POTUS masks. Thus, Utah learns to surf so he can infiltrate the surfer scene with the charismatic Bodhi (Patrick Swayze).
This movie is deeper than an excuse to make Keanu Reeves stand on a surfboard or jump out of perfectly good aeroplanes. It is an unironic masterpiece exploring dissociation, cults of personality, and the relationship between existentialism and extreme sports.
There is also an iconic scene which Danny Butterball summarizes in Hot Fuzz as Utah “chasin’ him through peoples’ gardens, and then he goes to shoot [redacted] but he can’t because he loves him so much and he’s firin’ his gun up in the air and he’s like ‘AAGGGHHH.’”’ This action doesn’t just lead to angst and another half hour of plot – it marks the point where Utah begins to distance himself away from his career in law enforcement.
Admittedly, Utah’s “buddy” Pappas has a fairly minor role in Point Break, but they work together – notably, their transitional period to accept each others’ quirks is far quicker than in other movies, where the conflict between cops remains a point of tension until the climax.
I actually loved this movie, from Utah’s induction into the ranks of the FBI in California to the final cathartic scene on a stormy Australian beach. It is the most powerful movie I’ve seen this year.
Bon Cop Bad Cop (2006)
A cop from Ontario (Colm Feore) and a cop from Quebec (Patrick Huard) are jointly assigned to solve a case when a body is found on the border between Ontario and Quebec.
Rare is a Canadian movie, and rarer still is a Canadian movie that gives both of its official languages roughly equal screentime. Also, the plot revolves around a thinly-disguised Toronto Maple Leafs knockoff, Rick Mercer plays fake-Don-Cherry, and the Quebecois cop moans “Vive le Quebec libre” during a sex scene.
Canadianisms aside, Bon Cop Bad Cop is probably the darkest film on this list. Colm Feore and Patrick Huard have sharp, smouldering chemistry. There are also some minor plot holes: what do the symbols on the tattoos mean? Why was the first body dropped out of a helicopter? Why are hatchbacks more popular in southern Quebec than anywhere else in North America?
Find the answers yourself: Bon Cop Bad Cop is worth two hours of your attention and half-fledged French skills.
Osmosis Jones (2001)
A virus (Lawrence Fishburne) invades Frank’s body (surprise! A live-action Bill Murray). At the cellular level, animated white blood cell Osmosis Jones (Chris Rock) is a rule-flouting cop who teams up with cold medication Drix (David Hyde Pierce) to fight the virus.
Osmosis Jones is to The Magic School Bus what Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is to The History Channel. It is… unique. Great care has been taken in constructing the details of Frank’s body as a city populated by cells and microbes: the lawyers live in hemorrhoids.
Unfortunately one’s enjoyment of this movie is limited by one’s tolerance for scatological jokes, and my own tolerance is tragically low. The human body is a damp and nasty place – Frank’s body even more so. Some treat their bodies like temples, and others eat boiled eggs off the bottom of a monkey cage because the ten-second rule tells them so. Eugh.
(Also highly recommended and reviewed previously: Hot Fuzz, Lethal Weapon, Die Hard)
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