Buddy cop film

A buddy cop film is a film with plots involving two people of very different and conflicting personalities who are forced to work together to solve a crime and/or defeat criminals, sometimes learning from each other in the process. The two are normally cops, but some films, such as 48 Hrs. (a cop and a con), that are not about two cops may still be referred to as buddy cop films. It is a subgenre of buddy films.

Frequently, although not always, the two heroes are of different ethnicity or cultures. However, regardless of ethnicity, the central difference is normally that one is "wilder" than the other: a hot-tempered iconoclast is paired with a more even-tempered partner. Often the "wilder" partner is the younger of the two, with the even-tempered partner having more patience and experience. These films sometimes also contain a variation on the good cop/bad cop motif, in which one partner is kinder and law-abiding, while the other is a streetwise, "old school" police officer who tends to break (or at least bend) the rules. Another frequent plot device of this genre is for one of the women be removed from her natural element: sometimes in a foreign country or new city, a "desk jockey" used to paperwork being forced into the field, or a rookie or non-cop partner who is unfamiliar with police work. When this is done, the other woman acts as a guide to the unfamiliar.

In his review of Rush Hour, Roger Ebert coined the term "Wunza Movie" to describe this subgenre, a pun on the phrase "One's a..." that could be used to describe the contrasts between the two characters in a typical film.^[1]

The cliché was satirized in the film Last Action Hero. While the movie in itself was a buddy cop film (i.e. pairing a fictional cop with a real world boy), the film's police department obligatorily assigned all cops a conflicting buddy to work with.

A subgenre of the buddy cop film is the buddy cop-dog movie, which teams a cop with a dog, but uses the same element of unlikely partnership to create comedic hijinks. Examples include Turner & Hooch, Top Dog and K-9.

History

Akira Kurosawa's 1949 Japanese film Stray Dog, starring Toshiro Mifune and Takashi Shimura, is considered a precursor to the buddy cop film genre.^[2] Another early pioneer of the buddy cop film genre is the 1967 American film In the Heat of the Night. The genre was later popularized by the 1982 film 48 Hrs., starring Eddie Murphy and Nick Nolte, one of the most successful buddy cop films.

In television, early examples of buddy cop television series include I Spy (1965–68), Starsky and Hutch (1975–79), "The Sweeney" (1975–78) and to a lesser extent, Miami Vice (1984–89).

American buddy cop films

• Hickey & Boggs
  alcoholic, maverick police partners hunting a kidnapper
• The Gauntlet
  A tough alcoholic cop paired with female convict
• 48 Hrs. (1982) and Another 48 Hrs. (1990)
  A sloppy cop with slick convict
• Beverly Hills Cop and its sequels
  An unorthodox, street-smart cop teams with by-the-book cops
• Murphy's Law
  A fugitive cop teamed with a female thief
• Armed and Dangerous
  Fired cop and inept lawyer become security guards
• Running Scared
  Two retiring cops find themselves having to make one final arrest
• Lethal Weapon and its sequels
  A by-the-book family man teamed with maverick
• Dragnet
  The 1987 film starring Dan Aykroyd and Tom Hanks
• The Hidden
  An alien cop teamed up with a human cop
• Shoot to Kill (1988)
  A black FBI agent teams up with white outdoors man to catch a killer in the Washington wilderness
• Colors
  A rookie LAPD officer paired with a veteran LAPD officer
• Red Heat
  A Russian cop teamed with American cop
• Die Hard with a Vengeance
  NYPD cop McClane paired with electrician
• Live Free or Die Hard
  McClane paired with computer hacker
• A Good Day to Die Hard
  McClane paired with CIA-agent son
• Alien Nation
  A human teamed with extraterrestrial
• Collision Course
  Detroit detective teams up with Tokyo detective.
• K-9
  A human cop and police dog
• Renegades
  An American cop paired with a Native American civilian
• The Killer (1989)
  A hitman pairs up with a policeman who tries to hunt him down
• Loose Cannons (1990)
  A hardened cop pairs with a detective with multiple-personality disorder
• Turner & Hooch
  A cop paired with crime dog
• Black Rain
  An American cop teamed with Japanese
• Tango & Cash
  A smooth cop teamed with scruffy cop
• Downtown
  A suburban patrolman teamed with a city cop
• I Come in Peace
  Originally known as "Dark Angel", a maverick police detective is paired up with a "by the book" FBI agent on the trails of an alien drug dealer
• Marked for Death
  An ex-D.E.A. agent turned vigilante teamed with his old Army buddy
• The Rookie
  A stressed out, nervous rookie cop paired with seasoned Veteran cop
• Kindergarten Cop
  Two L.A. detectives set a trap for a drug dealer who is stalking his ex-wife in a small town in Oregon.
• The Hard Way
  An actor teamed with a cop
• A Gnome Named Gnorm
  A cop paired with a little gnome
• Point Break
  A young undercover FBI agent paired with seasoned FBI agent
• Showdown in Little Tokyo (1991)
  A strong, tough American cop paired with Euroasian cop
• The Last Boy Scout
  A hardened ex-Secret Service agent turned private detective teams up with disgraced American Football star
• Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot
  A cop teamed with his mother
• Hard Boiled
  A cop inspector teamed up with an undercover cop
• Last Action Hero
  A fictional cop paired with real world boy
• Hellbound
  A Chicago police partners on a mission in Israel
• Bad Boys and Bad Boys II
  A playboy teamed with family man
• Top Dog
  A maverick human cop teamed with a smart German Shepherd
• Seven
  A educated cop about to retire teamed up with young, eager cop
• Theodore Rex
  A human teamed with dinosaur
• Bulletproof
  An undercover officer teams with a carjacker he befriended
• Maximum Risk
  A French cop paired with the girlfriend of his late twin brother
• The Glimmer Man
  A L.A. police partners who use different methods
• Metro
  A wacky police hostage negotiator paired with a tough S.W.A.T. team member
• Men in Black
  A tough guy senior agent of a top secret agency recruits young renegade urban cop
• Rush Hour and its sequels
  A professional Chinese cop teamed with a loudmouth and obnoxious African-American cop
• The Corruptor
  An American rookie cop paired with a veteran Chinese cop
• Wild Wild West
  A U.S. Army officer teamed with U.S. Marshal
• Blue Streak
  An ex-con impersonating an officer and a newly appointed detective
• Shanghai Noon and Shanghai Knights
  No cops; A Chinese- American former palace guard teamed up with American outlaw
• 15 Minutes
  A homicide cop teamed with arson investigator
• Osmosis Jones
  Animated: above the law white blood cell cop with a by-the-book cold pill cop
• Replicant
  A cop paired with the human clone of a killer he's obsessed with catching
• Training Day
  A corrupt narcotics cop paired with idealistic rookie
• Ozzy & Drix
  Animated: above the law white blood cell cop with a by-the-book cold pill cop
• National Security
  A disgraced former cop teamed up with wannabe who got him into trouble
• Cradle 2 the Grave
  A Taiwanese cop teams up with an African-American jewel thief
• Hollywood Homicide
  An aging veteran L.A. cop paired with younger cop who wants to be an actor
• The Rundown
  Not cops, but a similar idea: a bounty hunter must team up with the target he was originally put in charge of finding
• Starsky & Hutch
  A streetwise intuitive cop teamed with reserved, intellectual cop
• White Chicks
  Two black FBI agents and brothers disguised as white women
• Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
  A small-time crook paired with gay detective
• 16 Blocks
  A depressed angry cop, and optimistic criminal
• Miami Vice
  2006 film based on the television series
• Righteous Kill
  A veteran police partners pursuing a vigilante they busted years ago
• Life On Mars
  Sam Tyler's 21st century policing methods conflict with the unprofessional methods of Gene Hunt
• Sherlock Holmes (2009)
  Two intelligent detectives, one sensible, one slightly eccentric, teamed up
• Cop Out
  Veteran partners who are constantly annoyed by each other
• The Good Guys
  An outdated maverick and by-the-book rookie
• The Other Guys
  A nerdy accountant-type cop teamed with aggressive, case breaking cop
• Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son
  An FBI agent teams with his stepson
• Bullet to the Head
  An undercover officer teams with a hit man
• 21 Jump Street and 22 Jump Street
  A geeky cop and cool cop
• The Heat
  A hot-shot female FBI agent teamed with a streetwise female detective
• R.I.P.D.
  A recently deceased cop teams up with veteran supernatural cop
• 2 Guns
  A DEA agent and NCIS officer
• Ride Along
  A security guard teamed with police detective
• Let's Be Cops
  Two friends pose as police officers

International buddy cop films

• Banlieue 13 (France) 
  undercover cop and anti-gang activist
• Roma Violenta (Italy) 
  violent cop against the criminals of Rome
• Bon Cop, Bad Cop (Canada) 
  Francophone and Anglophone Canadian cops
• The Guard (Ireland) 
  Irish Garda officer teamed with FBI agent
• Hot Fuzz (UK)
  Tough, 'By The Book' cop teamed with overweight wannabe action cop
• Police Story 3: Super Cop (Hong Kong) 
  Hong Kong cop paired with a female detective
• Split Second (1992, United Kingdom)
  A rookie police officer is assigned to partner Harley Stone, a burnt-out and highly cynical homicide detective
• Stray Dog (1949, Japan)
  Directed by Akira Kurosawa, it stars Toshiro Mifune as a young cop paired with a more experienced cop played by Takashi Shimura
• Taxi (1998, France) 
  Not strictly a buddy cop film, but features a cop and a taxi driver with dreams of entering auto racing
• Tiempo de Valientes (2005, Argentina) 
  A depressed cop paired with a psychologist.
• Dhoom (2004, India) 
  A cop paired with a thief.
• Andar Baahar (1984, India) 
  A cop paired with a thief - inspired by 48 hrs.
• Dhoom 2 (2006, India)
• Dhoom 3 (2013, India)

In popular culture

• In the animated prime time series, The Critic, Jay Sherman reviews a sub par movie titled "Beverly-Hills-Robo-K-9-Cop-and-a-half 2" in which the title parodies numerous "buddy cop" films. In the film within a television show within a television show, Dirty Harry's constant loss of partners forces the police captain to team him with "a woman, a cute little kid, an ugly old dog, a dinosaur, and a leprechaun (which ends up exploding)." An Arnold Schwarzenegger character comments that he is partnered with "a pig, an alien, Siamese twins, a sofa, and a second rate mime (which explodes)." The scene parodies the aspect that a "partner" in a buddy cop film can be absolutely anything, no matter how strange it is.^[3]

• On sketch comedy series MADtv, a sketch appears for the trailer of a buddy cop film parody, known as The Seven Buddy Cops. The title refers to seven actors known for buddy cop films over the years (Nick Nolte, Eddie Murphy, Chris Tucker, Jackie Chan, Owen Wilson, Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones). Another sketch from the series called "Cream of the Cop" featured a hardened cop Phil LaMarr partnered with a can of creamed corn.

• National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon 1 (1993) starring Emilio Estevez and Samuel L. Jackson is a parody of the Lethal Weapon franchise, pairing the laid back Detective Luger character (Jackson, inspired by Lethal Weapon's Roger Murtaugh, portrayed as a by-the-book family man) and the fearless Detective Colt (Estevez, inspired by Martin Riggs, and described as a burnt-out, gun-happy psycho from the Narcotics Division).

• The Annoying Orange YouTube Series, features a mini video-series literally called Buddy Cop which parodies this genre. It features supporting protagonists Midget Apple and Marshmallow as amateurish buddy cops, with Marshmallow still possessing his usual childish, immature nature as a cop.

References