21 Jump Street

There is a moment of pure brilliance at the start of 21 Jump Street. Following a botched arrest, Officers Schmidt (Jonah Hill) and Jenko (Channing Tatum) are summoned by their senior officer, who informs them they have been reassigned to a cancelled undercover program from the 80s. “People have no imagination these days, so they keep recycling stuff from the past and hope nobody will notice” he quips nonchalantly. It is a moment so ridiculously meta and defiant, it deftly sets the tone for the rest of the movie.

The genius behind 21 Jump Street the movie is that it realises the premise behind 21 Jump Street the TV show was always a bit daft to begin with. The Johnny Depp starring crime drama had a bunch of youthful-looking cops pose as teenagers and infiltrate local high schools to investigate abuse and drug trafficking. The Jonah Hill scripted adaptation takes the same ludicrous premise and plays it for laughs. Unsurprisingly, it goes down a treat.

And boy, is it funny. Directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller easily have the best comedy of 2012 on their hands and that is mainly because they’ve pulled off the enviable task of delivering a film that effortlessly manages to mock and pay homage to its source material in equal measure. If your two cops are trying to infiltrate a drug ring in high school, might as well have them trip out on drugs to hilarious effect too, right?  

Any Judd Apatow fan will know by now that Hill can do this kind of comedic shtick (the kind that is endearingly juvenile yet never feels too forced) in his sleep by now and Ice Cube does indeed steal every scene he appears in as police captain Dickson (“The kid OD’d on HFS and is now dead. And because he’s white, everybody actually gives a crap”), but the real surprise here is Tatum.

Because he’s so often cast as a mumbling Ken doll in tosh like Dear John and The Vow, there is an underlying fear he may stink the whole film up the moment he first appears on screen as a jock frustrated with his reputation for being a dumbass. But playing against type has done wonders for the former stripper. He emerges as a funnier and unexpectedly more relatable character than Hill’s loser desperately seeking a second chance in the high school popularity stakes.

If there is one thing that tarnishes the film’s nigh immaculate record is its resolve to crank up the violence to gory levels in the second half. It may be intended for laughs, but somehow gushing neck wounds and severed appendages don’t sit well with the yuks and gags that came before. It just goes to show that 21 Jump Street makes a brilliant comedy, but tries too hard as an action flick.

And while it is neither a big secret nor a huge spoiler that Mr Depp turns up for an obligatory appearance (21 Jump Street did launch his acting career, after all), you will never guess when and in what capacity. The reveal itself is nothing short of side-splitting and is quite possibly one of the best cameos in history. Seriously, it is that good!

4/5