Buddy cop

The "buddy cop" subgenre of buddy films are actions films with plots involving two men 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 men are normally cops, but some films, such as 48 Hrs. (cop and an ex-con), that are not about two cops may still be referred to as a buddy cop film, or as a member of a larger genre known as buddy films.

Frequently, although not always, the two heroes are of different ethnicities 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 men be removed from his natural element, usually by being forced to operate in a different country. When this is done, the other man 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.

The cliche was satirized in the film Last Action Hero. In the Movie City police department, all cops are obligatory assigned 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 and Hooch and K-9.

Origins

Early pioneers to the buddy film/buddy cop genre include the TV series I Spy and Starsky and Hutch, and to a lesser extent, Miami Vice.

Freebie and the Bean was one of the earliest films of the genre, while the 1982 film 48 Hrs., starring Eddie Murphy and Nick Nolte, is one of the most successful.

Examples

Examples of notable Buddy Cop films are:

• Freebie and the Bean (1974)
• 48 Hrs. (1982) and Another 48 Hrs. (1990)
• Alien Nation (human teamed with extraterrestrial)
• Bad Boys and Bad Boys II (playboy teamed with family man)
• Beverly Hills Cop and its sequels (an unorthodox, street-smart cop teams with by-the-book cops)
• Black Rain
• Blue Streak
• Bon Cop, Bad Cop (French Canadian and English Canadian cops)
• Bullet Proof
• Colors
• Die Hard with a Vengeance (Caucasian cop paired with African-American racist electrician)
• Dragnet (the 1987 film starring Dan Aykroyd and Tom Hanks)
• Hawaii Vice (genre parodying series of pornographic films pairing an Asian woman with a Caucasian male)
• Hollywood Homicide
• Hot Fuzz (genre parody and buddy cop movie by Edgar Wright, starring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost)
• The Last Boy Scout (not cops, but contains parallel elements of the 'buddy cop' genre- hardened ex-Secret Service agent teams up with disgraced American Football star)
• The Lethal Weapon series (African-American family man teamed with Caucasian maverick)
• Men In Black
• Metro
• Miami Vice (2006 film based on the television series)
• Mississippi Burning
• National Security
• Red Heat (Russian cop teamed with American)
• Rising Sun
• The Rundown (not cops, but same idea)
• Running Scared
• Showdown in Little Tokyo (1991)
• Rush Hour, Rush Hour 2, and Rush Hour 3 (Chinese cop teamed with African-American cop)
• Showtime
• Starsky & Hutch (streetwise intuitive cop teamed with reserved, intellectual cop)
• Tango & Cash (smooth cop teamed with scruffy cop)