Who doesn’t love cop buddy movies or TV shows? In the best of them, the partnerships are just as important to the success of the movie/show as the plot and the action. Funny or serious, cop buddy movies are a good way to kill a few hours in the movie theater or in front of the TV.
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I’m making no apologies for this sheer indulgence. I cannot get enough of Hawaii Five-O and it’s definitely one of the best cop buddy shows right now. It is so far removed from anything else I watch, but I have a serious thing for Alex O’Loughlin, who plays Steve McGarrett. And, one of the best aspects of the show is the relationship between McGarrett and Danno. It’s hard to describe but it really isn’t a bromance – tbh it feels more like a bickering married couple at times. The love and respect are definitely there, but what makes it for me is their repartee. Danno’s quips about McGarrett aka Ninja boy are hilarious.
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Fast talking Chris Tucker teams up with martial arts master Jackie Chan to bring us one of the funniest cop buddy movies series ever. Chinese detective Inspector Lee and Sergeant James Carter have a prickly love-hate relationship where there’s also a major culture clash. Throughout the series of three Rush Hour movies, love grows even if mutual respect doesn’t. Some of the best parts of these movies – which are full of action and comedy – are the reels of outtakes at the end.
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It’s a shame that this show looks so dated now. Cagney and Lacey, starring Sharon Gless and Tyne Daly, paved the way for strong female law enforcement characters on TV. You can’t help but be drawn into the personal lives of the two women which are so very different – homely Mary Beth Lacey with husband Harvey and kids, and fiercely independent Christine Cagney with an alcoholic ex-cop father. I like that this show didn’t put emphasis on stories about how difficult it was to be a female police officer in the ‘70s.
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I’m not talking about Owen Wilson and Ben Stiller because that movie adaptation was truly awful. The TV series Starsky and Hutch, starring Paul Michael Glaser as Dave Starsky and David Soul as Ken Hutchinson, brought us a brand new style of cop show in the 1970s. Starsky and Hutch were streetwise, smart talking New York detectives who weren’t above using every means to get their man. There was a true sense of camaraderie and this is probably one of the first TV bromances, way before the term was even thought of.
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One of the tried and tested formulas of the best cop buddy movies is that the two partners have to be as opposite as chalk and cheese. This is shown perfectly in the Lethal Weapon series. Martin Riggs (Mel Gibson) lives life on the edge while Roger Murtaugh (Danny Glover) just wants to cruise quietly into retirement where he can enjoy life with his wife and kids. When the chips are down, however, Murtaugh is always there to back Riggs up, no matter how crazy!
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And here we go again with the two very different cops who come together to make a successful partnership. Mike Lowrey (Will Smith) is a trust fund baby, used to the finer things in life. Marcus Burnett is a regular detective with a family, eking out his paycheck as best he can. Lowrey is laid back. Burnett is uptight. Together they make a real mess as a pair of narcotics detectives, shooting baddies, wrecking vehicles and blowing up practically everything.
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The British haven’t really had much success on the cop buddies front. Our police force isn’t really set up to create the partnership thing. Why Hot Fuzz works so well, though, is that it picks up on all those traits of good cop buddy movies that make them a success. Nicholas Angel (Simon Pegg) and Danny Butterman (Nick Frost) are about as different as you can get. Angel is the ultimate law enforcer – efficient to the point of tedium and used to clearing up the London streets. Butterman is witless, lazy and happy in his sleepy countryside village. Never has there been such a culture clash. And never in the history of cop movies has there ever been such a crazy, zany dastardly plot.
Do you have any favorite cop buddy movies or cop buddy TV shows?
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