21 Jump Street Review
High school slacker Schmidt (Jonah Hill) and dim-witted jock Jenko (Channing Tatum) both find themselves without much of a goal in life. One desperate to toughen up, the other desperate to increase his smarts. Both then find themselves training to become police officers and buddying up in an unlikely alliance that after one arrest mishap finds them transferred to the Jump Street division.
Once here the fun really begins as the boys are enrolled back into high school by their bad tempered boss (Ice Cue) in order to break up a drug trafficking ring. Off to school they go to rediscover their roots; meet girls, make new friends and swap their real high school identities which lets each one discover more about the world they never inhabited back when they were really at school.
Jonah Hill has a very uneven track record already – often playing the comedic relief to the real comedians in other people’s films, and then in the past few months he has been slated for his leading role in The Sitter, and yet commended for his supporting dramatic role in Moneyball (which has also earned him an Oscar nomination). Praying that he realises that drama is the way to go, Hill has one more trick up his sleeve for the time being. Firstly he has dumped the fro and facial hair, he’s lost a ton of weight and he’s taken on writing and production duties on this current comedy match up. And bizarrely everything seems to work.
Channing Tatum also gets to exercise several comedic muscles he’s never had to chance to display before proving that it isn’t just the nerds that can be funny.
Ice Cube plays the stereotypical bad tempered black superior officer to these to half wits, and despite the fact that he himself calls out this cliché when he is introduced he runs with it anyway (and without wanting to sound any sort of wrong, it seems that this stereotype is one that he was destined to play as he does it so well. Who else at this age would be perfect casting?).
There are some odd moments where the comedy falls a bit flat – but they really have packed the laughs in tightly in a grand effort to make everyone laugh.
Steven Hurst