Review - 21 Jumpstreet

Grade: B-

Yang: Relentlessly entertaining, sometimes sharp, and darn near uproarious. Tatum, Hill and Cube play versions of their typical archetypes with a solid degree of near-parody. Offers a few entertaining non-surprises.

Yin: Juvenile humor is unrelenting and will surely sour members of the audience expecting something more than a parody remake, but they should know better

In-Between: 21 Jumpstreet officially ends with a shot to the neck

There is no way this should have worked.

A hipper-than-thou self-aware remake of a three-decade old gimmick procedural with a scowling Ice Cube, Channing Tatum being Channing Tatum (and making jokes), a slim Jonah Hill playing the "straight man", and slight commentary on today’s over-aspiring teens should not work.

But, somehow—mostly through a deft combination of brash, relentless humor and affectionate parody—Phil Lord and Chris Miller’s big-screen remake of 21 Jumpstreet proves to be one of the most entertaining flicks of this young year.

21 Jumpstreet takes the 80’s Johnny Depp Vehicle and runs wide left, eschewing the original show’s earnestness and topicality for a, mostly, relentless stream of sight gags and penis jokes. As bad as that sounds, the approach brings 21 Jumpstreet closer to the off-the-wall loopiness of 2005’s Starsky and Hutch remake than 2002’s dour Mod Squad rehash.

Lord and Miller’s version follows rookie cops Jenko (Channing Tatum) Schmidt (Jonah Hill), two underachievers who are making a real go at being the worst cops ever to have been sworn in. Jenko can barely recite the Miranda Rights while Schmidt constantly chokes in the face of pressure. The root of these ne’er do wells’ abject failure is linked to their high school experience, where Schmidt was a shy nerd and Jenko was the dumbest of all of dumb jocks. Luckily, Jenko and Schmidt still look exactly like they did when they graduated from high school seven years prior—though Jenko’s full–grown frame would strain credulity--which makes them perfectly qualified for an undercover unit that sends youthful cops into high schools to uncover major crimes. Under the leadership of Ice Cube’s perpetually grouchy and abrasive Captain Dickson, Jenko and Schmidt are charged with infiltrating a group of teen dealers led by the younger Franco—Dave, looking every bit like older brother James from his Freaks and Geeks days--who are slinging a designer drug with probably the best name for an illicit substance, ever. The deeper Jenko and Schmidt fall into their roles, the more they learn that the high school landscape has changed significantly in half a decade.

What makes the 21 Jumpstreet work is a collection performances by a cast that plays precisely to type. Ice Cube scowls and makes edgy racial comments and slurs. Channing Tatum plays a red-blooded, hot-headed meathead with limited intelligence. Jonah Hill is the awkwardly sly nice guy who can sneak a burn in without missing a step. And…well, let’s just say everybody plays heavily on the archetypes that have defined most of their careers to a tee, and beyond. Thus, you don’t see a great deal of depth in the performances—and why should we—but it’s funny to see these character types played out to a humorous, if not logical, ends. By letting these archetypes loose in a narrative that doesn’t actually “respect” the archetypes, the characters and the performance actually become more effective for stepping squarely into the realm of near-parody.

By embracing the inherent ridiculousness of the characters and the premise, 21 Jumpstreet follows the path worn by remakes like the Brady Bunch and Starsky and Hutch. Not that any of the original shows couldn’t be translated into respectable dramatic fare; it’s just that the original premises are so ingrained in our cultural conscious as relics of a bygone era that treating them with any degree of earnestness would quickly lead to derision. 21 Jumpstreet sidesteps that problem by embracing the absurdity and letting the low-brow jokes flow fast and furious, with only a lull post-midpoint.

Granted, the humor isn’t always the sharpest, but it is relentless to the point that you’ll be hard pressed to not laugh at something. That said, 21 Jumpstreet is ribald and crude to a fault, and anyone expecting this to be a revelatory masterwork should try to measure their expectations a bit more carefully. The flick even manages a few surprises that may not be particularly shocking but are solidly. If anything, that’s what this flick does fairly well; it entertains, and how much more can one ask from a remake of an 80s teen cop procedural from a studio that has probably run out of new ideas.