For some reason, we managed to miss watching 21 Jump Street when it was released both at the cinema and DVD back in 2012, but having finally gotten around to catching up – thanks largely to the release of 22 Jump Street earlier in 2014 – we can say it’s well worth watching. While it’s obviously not intended to win any acting awards, it does a very good job of delivering a laugh-a-minute comedy that doesn’t shirk on the kind of silly humour that you can’t help but find funny if you even vaguely like films like Pineapple Express, Superbad or Let’s Be Cops.
The story is a movie adaptation of the original TV show starring Johnny Depp and it sees Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill teaming up as youthful looking rookie cops that get taken in to the 21 Jump Street programme, despite their obvious shortcomings in law enforcement. In the programme they’re sent undercover as brothers to a high school to infiltrate a gang of preppy drug pushers, who are about to go big with their new synthetic drug, HSF.
It makes for a good base to structure the film around and provides a lot of possibilities for jokes around how little they look like eachother as brothers and how unlike a high school senior Tatum’s character seems. It also creates a good yin and yang partnership as the opposites start to play off each others strengths and set up some pretty good jokes around their weaknesses. The going back to school concept provides a lot of nostalgic empathy for the storyline making it easy to put yourself in the midst of the mayhem that ensues.
While we already knew that Jonah Hill has a lot of comedy might in his movie locker, it was a surprise to see how funny Channing Tatum could be when he’s giving a good script to work with. Take him out of the equation and the film wouldn’t have been as funny as it was, which is a credit to his comedy acting skills and timing, as well as being a big reason the movie got a sequel, 22 Jump Street, earlier in 2014.
The two of them work incredibly well together as the comedy duo that makes the majority of the laughs what they are. They’ve got a good way of playing off each others lines and deliver some rapid fire jokes that keep the laughs coming.
It’s an on-screen combination that’s added to by Ice Cube, who puts in a very strong performance as the brilliantly named Captain Dickson. He smashes up the self-aware cliche of the angry black police captain and makes it stick throughout, giving you a sense of expectation every time he’s involved in a scene.
The 21 Jump Street movie is packed with a lot of tongue in cheek humour and self deprecation that helps to make the movie a little smarter than it would have been if it had just been all out stupid comedy. It knows what it’s trying to do and it does it very well with a good amount of satirical aplomb.
The action scenes are pretty impressive too, especially when they blur the lines between straight up action and comedy. Things inevitably get pretty silly at times, but this is largely a parody of the cop movie genre when it’s not just a license be as over the top as they can get away with.
A lot of credit for the film’s success has got to go to Michael Bacall, who wrote the screenplay with a little help from Jonah Hill on the storyline. The script is incredibly slick with great one liners, double entendres and random mentalness that all adds up to a lot of funny.
For anyone that hasn’t seen the movie yet, we definitely recommend it. The DVD is incredibly cheap to buy these days, and it’s one that you could watch a few times just to learn a some of the better lines.
21 Jump Street DVD review: 3.8/5
