21 Jump Street – Straddling the Line

In 1987, the year the TV show starring a yet to be megastar Johnny Depp debuted, I was 21 years old. I remember vaguely catching the show here and there and I thought the concept — cops going undercover at high schools — was a novel one.  I understand that there are some people, my baby sister included, who followed that show every week and have fond memories of it. I guess those fans of the TV show might judge the new movie with the same name starring Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill a little more harshly than I did. It’s always hard to try and update a beloved classic from our youth, and there’s a long list of movies that failed to get it right — “Starsky & Hutch," “Charlie’s Angels” and “Dukes of Hazzard” to name a few. 

The general concept is the same — Channing and Jonah star as inept policemen that are sent to work on this undercover team as some sort of a punishment for their general ineffectiveness as real cops. That’s where the similarity ends. This movie isn’t about the pubescent felons as much as it is a relationship movie between Jenko (Tatum) and Schmidt (Hill). The movie opens on a pivotal moment in these characters’ high school experience — Schmidt is a nerd, laughed at by Jenko in his attempts to ask a girl to the prom. Jenko is a football star who almost flunks out of high school because he can’t pass his classes. Sitting on the curb on opposite sides of the main entrance to the high school — miserable and alone — these two couldn’t be more different. But, high school ends and we all grow up and realize that we might need a friend that’s different than us. The two meet up again in the police academy and each help the other with their shortcomings. A friendship is born.

That friendship is tested throughout this movie as going back to high school a second time provides Schmidt with a chance to be popular and loved and Jenko with a chance to be smart and appreciated for more than just his abs (which, let’s be honest, are impressive).

Have I mentioned that the movie is funny yet? Because it is very funny. Laugh out loud, look around at the other patrons in the theatre so you can point and nod, funny. Tatum has a great comic timing and Hill is back in fine form. The ten minutes of the movie where they both go through the stages of this drug they are trying to pull off the street is particularly amusing. But here’s where it straddles the line. There’s a line between funny and… camp. Where you stop laughing and you start rolling your eyes because it’s completely unbelievable and a little off putting. That’s how I felt about a lot of the scenes in “Bridesmaids," and I know I’m in the minority. “The Brady Bunch Movie," another remake of a cult TV show, celebrated the camp. There are times when this happens in this movie as well — any scenes with the motorcycle gang jumped the line for me in particular. 

The movie is saved by the chemistry of the two leads. Their buddy relationship is believable. Their slow awareness and appreciation of a different high school experience than they originally had was amusing and thoughtful, even at times, touching. 

I wasn’t rooting for them to catch the bad guys here — that’s totally beside the point of this movie — but I was caught up in their journey to discover and accept themselves and each other in a new light. I’d recommend this one  — watch it with a bunch of friends — and if you went to high school together, all the better.