FILTH AND FOUL: a review of "21 Jump Street"

“21 JUMP STREET”

Based upon the television series created by Stephen J. Cannell and Patrick Hasburgh

Story By Michael Bacall and Jonah Hill

Screenplay Written by Michael Bacall

Directed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller

* (one star)

And the buddy cop comedy movie genre takes yet another proverbial bullet to the chest.

I realize very well if I have said all of this before and quite recently too. When I reviewed Writer/Director Kevin Smith’s god awful R rated comedy “Cop Out” (2010), I remarked how that film was so terrible that it essentially proved that the world simply does not need even one more buddy cop movie as the clichés have sprouted their own tired clichés and none of them are funny anymore. But then, there was the release of Director Adam McKay’s “The Other Guys.” While it was a tad messy during its latter half, that film exuberantly showed there was perhaps still some life within the genre. But now, I have slogged through Directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller’s “21 Jump Street,” their extremely loose adaptation of the late 1980’s television undercover cops in high school series, and I am finding myself leaning strongly back towards my original feelings. But, perhaps these feelings are just indicative of a larger issue and that is the undeniable fact that comedy is hard and that there truly is an art and finesse to the R rated comedy in particular. “21 Jump Street,” sad to say, possesses none of those traits.

In regards to the original television series, the basic plot of the movie version of “21 Jump Street” is the same: youthful looking cops covertly infiltrate high schools to track down drug dealers and the like. Where the television show and film divide is completely within the approach as the series was a police action drama and this movie is a gleefully vulgar comedy. Jonah Hill stars as Morton Schmidt, whom when we first meet him, he is a virginal, painfully shy, braces wearing, teenaged Eminem clone terrified of asking the girl of his dreams to the prom. Channing Tatum co-stars as classmate, high school jock and Prom King, Greg Jenko, whose disregard for all academics, gets him banned from the Prom and barely allows him to graduate.

Schmidt and Jenko meet again seven years later at the police academy, where the twosome become best friends after assisting each other through the rigorous program. After graduating as partners and with visions of non-stop police excitement in their not too bright heads, Schmidt and Jenko are assigned as bicycle riding park patrol officers. After disastrously botching a potential drug bust, the officers are re-assigned to “Jump Street,” under the command of the histrionic and endlessly foul-mouthed Captain Dickson (Ice Cube). With Dickson’s vehement command of “infiltrate the dealers, find the suppliers,” the two enroll undercover at their old high school to bust a synthetic drug ring. Nasty, raunchy, filthy “hilarity” ensues…

Now look, dear readers, I have to sheepishly admit that I did indeed watch the original “21 Jump Street” series, the very show that launched the career of a certain Johnny Depp, for a stretch during its initial run. Yet, I do also have to say that I was not such a devotee that I was necessarily looking forward to any 21^st century update at all, let alone any strict remake either. In some ways, I do have to give the filmmakers credit for desiring to satirize the series, cop movies and teen films all in one swoop. But, I just wish that I had responded to it much better than I did. Furthermore, I wish that the film hadn’t been weighted down by all of the self-congratulatory parody. “21 Jump Street” would be insufferably smug if it weren’t trying so desperately hard to be clever and edgy in its self-conscious stupidity. And besides, once the film falls into its endlessly protracted climax as the bullets start flying, blood begins spraying and the car chases occur, as if this movie were a more mainstream version of Producer Judd Apatow and Director David Gordon Green’s “Pineapple Express” (2008), I had pretty much checked out. Although I was not fully checked in to the experience either.

Yes, “21 Jump Street” tries to have its cake and eat it too through self-referential nods to the series as well as cop movie clichés but again just making the jokes is not good enough. The asides about the inanity of recycling old material and passing it off as new plus cop movie clichés like the angry, forever screaming Black captain are all painfully obvious. Additionally, the basic buddy plotline of two former high school classmates returning to their old high school only to find themselves with their former roles reversed, where Jonah Hill is the popular and Channing Tatum is the outcast, is equally obvious and you can see coming immediately. And while I will admit that Tatum was a good sport by playing into the public’s possible perception of him as being nothing more than a slab of brainless beefcake, “21 Jump Street,” for all of its intents and purposes, never rises to the full on, incredibly inspired, satirical lunacy of something like Kevin Smith’s “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back” (2001). That film was feverishly smart about its stupidity and I laughed myself sick to boot! But hey…at least with “21 Jump Street,” to its meager credit, I didn’t respond with any sense of the vehement rage I felt towards Director McG and Drew Barrymore’s horridly hipster ego driven “Charlie’s Angels” (2000), which was so loose an adaptation that it really had absolutely, positively nothing to do with the original series and it didn’t even condescend to try in the first place.

Beyond all of those flaws, there is the central issue that I stated at the outset of this review, and that is the fact that there is an art and finesse to the vulgar R rated comedy. That particular finesse is so subjective to every viewer’s personal taste that those types of films just might be some of the most difficult comedy to pull off successfully. Dear readers, it just always amazes me that the comedy genre receives as little respect that it does as pulling off any successful comedy is extremely hard. Aside from all of the problems I had with “21 Jump Street,” the sole job of a movie like this is to just be funny. While I did laugh here and there, overall, it just did not do the job for me. As I have said before regarding various other movies within various other genres, “21 Jump Street” has all the notes but it cannot play the music.

Look, I just don’t have any real answers for you concerning this particular quandary as I am simply your friendly neighborhood film enthusiast. But, somehow with “21 Jump Street” I had true difficulty with the extreme level of profanity and incredible plethora of penis jokes. As I have expressed before, I do not offend easily so this is not a matter of a certain distaste I experienced while watching. Frankly, all of the profanity, potty humor and downright nasty sex jokes were all just so lame, as if the film was written by a bunch of excessively horny sixth graders…but that would be insulting to sixth graders.

Now, for whatever reasons, a film like Producer Judd Apatow and Director Greg Mottola’s “Superbad” (2007), also starring Jonah Hill and filled wall to wall with profanity, sexually driven humor and an army of penis jokes (with illustrations!) was a film I absolutely loved. Yes, that film contained a better story, situations, and characters by far, but just in terms of making me laugh, that film worked like the devil! There was a flair and rhythm I responded to in that film, many of Apatow’s other productions and directorial efforts as well as the films by Kevin Smith for instance, that felt decidedly and intensely lacking in “21 Jump Street.”

But, at least it tried. “21 Jump Street” is well made, it has a lot of energy and everyone in the cast seems game and is having a good time but “21 Jump Street” is just not nearly as clever, edgy, outrageous and just plain funny as it thinks it is. Not by a long shot.