Directors: Phil Lord, Chris Miller
Cast: Jonah Hill, Channing Tattum, Brie Larson, Dave Franco
Running time: 109 minutes
Certificate: 15
Synopsis: When two rookie cops are assigned to an undercover division, they themselves back in high school and on the trail of a mystery drug dealer. But in the short time they’ve been away, it seems that high school life has changed…
Looking at the marketing material for 21 JUMP STREET, one could be forgiven for arriving at certain preconceptions as to what the experience of going to see this film would actually entail. The family-friendly trailers introduce a variety of characters that feel immediately familiar and unremarkable; the humour essentially bases itself on the fact that the two lead characters are placed in an environment they thought they once knew, but realise has changed dramatically; and at some point Jonah Hill gets hit by a car. All well and good, but nothing special; however, once the full-length, gloriously R-rated feature gets underway, it’s soon apparent that 21 JUMP STREET is a whole lot more.
The film opens with an introduction to Morton Schmidt (Hill) and Greg Jenko (Channing Tatum), two pupils at a suburban high school; Schmidt is an overweight brainiac possessed with great social ineptitude, whilst Jenko is a bullying jock who finds himself on the wrong side of the principal office door a few times too often. They don’t get along. After high school, both enlist in the police academy, and form an unlikely friendship; Jenko helps Schmidt out with the physical training, whilst Schmidt coaches Jenko to higher grades in the written exams. Upon graduation, they are given a demeaning patrol at a local park, until Deputy Police Chief Hardy (Nick Offerman) decides to place them both under “an experimental program from the ’80s” and gets them to report to the eponymous 21 Jump Street, an abandoned church repurposed as a police station, led by the fierce Captain Dickson (Ice Cube). From there, Schmidt and Jenko are sent back to school, undercover thanks to their still-youthful appearances, to take down a synthetic drug operation that is rapidly becoming epidemic.
As a film adaptation of a prior, much beloved television series, 21 JUMP STREET was always going to be making a gamble with early impressions; this is a natural given, as happened with THE A TEAM and STARSKY AND HUTCH, 21 JUMP STREET not only had to appeal to its target audience (namely the lucrative cross-section of fans of both action movies and high-school comedies) but also pay back to fans of the original series, in order to come off as an authentic adaptation, and not just a cheap way of attaching an established brand onto an otherwise completely different product. 21 JUMP STREET manages this with some skill, bringing in the old formula and rationale of the original series and updating it in all the right ways to make it relevant and accessible to contemporary audiences. The fact that the 21 JUMP STREET program is openly recognised as a relic of the eighties within the film immediately shows that the film is not so much a retelling as it is a revival; taking ideas from before and seeing how they work now. It’s a clever approach, and pays off wonderfully.
Part of the whole updating process is adapting it to today’s sense of humour without pandering to established cliches. As a high school comedy, this is always problematic, as ever since AMERICAN PIE the formula has essentially remained the same; guys trying to hook up with girls, copious drinking by minors, hilarious or awkward incidents with the faculty and parents involved, and representation of all the cliques that make up high school society. There’s no real getting around this; even SUPERBAD, which breathed much needed fresh air into a dangerously stagnant genre, had to subscribe to this formula in some fashion. 21 JUMP STREET does so too, but utilises its protagonists to clever effect, putting them outside of any established groups of students (the cliques of today are a whole lot different from the ones around when they were high schoolers) in order to allow their idiosyncrasies to play off each other. There’s a profuse amount of profanity, used to hilarious effect throughout, as the absolute glee that comes from slinging some devastatingly funny lines around is only enhanced by the accompanying glee of being very, very rude about it.
Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum, on the surface, make for an unlikely pairing; neither has been in a film before this one where the other would have been able to slot in organically. Seeing them in action, however, throws any doubts out of the water. Tatum, especially, goes above and beyond to demonstrate that beneath what might be perceived as his dual persona as teen-romance-heartthrob and all-American-hardman, he can be really, really funny. His comedic timing is immense, and he knows exactly how to play off his own image and status within the film. Michael Bacall’s (who co-wrote 2010’s similarly surprising SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD) and Jonah Hill’s script allows both leads to shine in ways that both affirm and subvert their built-in images and make the film a singular, unique comedic achievement. The presence of Ice Cube, Ellie Kemper and Nick Offerman all bolster an already impressive movie, and the film also possesses the best cameo appearances in recent memory.
All that’s left to say is go see 21 JUMP STREET. It is immensely rewarding, and entirely fun through and through; all the components of the hyperactive script and buzzing energy of the players come together perfectly, and the laughs come hard and fast.
21 JUMP STREET arrives in cinemas 16th March
