The film's been widely derided by critics (30 per cent on Metacritic!) but has raked in almost 100 million clams at the US domestic box office since it was released there a month ago, rendering it something of a sleeper hit.
There were no media screenings here for Let's Be Cops (never a good sign), so I went and saw it yesterday at a public screening. And it was freaking awesome. Action comedies have never been critical darlings, but the drubbing this film received gave me very low expectations. Yet I had a ball watching it.
The hugely appealing leads (Jake Johnson and Damon Wayans Jr, both from TV show New Girl) satisfy the most important criteria of the three cited in the second paragraph - they appear to actually be having fun. Plus all their ideas about what cops actually do comes from the very kind of film Let's Be Cops is trying to be. So it's extra satisfying.
The American R-rating also helps - F-bombs flow freely, and in one comic set-piece Damon Wayans' character is forced to smoke crystal meth. That would never happen in a Bad Boys sequel. More on that in a moment.
Let's Be Cops is far from perfect, but it really tickled my Action Comedy glands, and gave me hope for the sub-genre's future, especially in light of the film's relative success.
It often takes a powerful proponent of the form to get one made these days, but even that doesn't always work out well. Uber-director Michael Bay is clearly an Action Comedy fan, having directed one of the last gasps of the sub-genre's classic era - 1995's Bad Boys.
A scene from Bad Boys II.
But when he had the clout to make a much bigger sequel in 2003, he promptly left behind the scrappy nature of the pure Action Comedy, and instead laid down the gauntlet for the gaudy, insanely over-the-top style of action comedy that would pervade the next decade of blockbusters, usually delivered by Bay himself.
As the superhero film and other family-friendly genres (Lord of the Rings-style fantasy, Tim Burton-style mock fantasy, Robots, YA adaptations) took over mainstream cinema, popcorn movies made for grown-ups were deprioritised.
But there are enough kids weaned on '80s movies working in Hollywood for little glimmers of the classic Action Comedy to shine through.
Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg in 2 Guns. Photo / Universal
Last year's Denzel Washington/Mark Wahlberg vehicle 2 Guns attempted to evoke the classic mismatched buddy Action Comedy, best evidenced by Midnight Run. It wasn't necessarily completely successful in doing so, but I appreciated the effort.
Ditto the Melissa McCarthy/Sandra Bullock hit The Heat, clearly designed as a female riff on 48 Hrs. or Lethal Weapon. I would've warmed to it more if it had taken better advantage of its R-rating though.
Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy The Heat.
As great as this year's 22 Jump St is, it's too concerned with meta-shenanigans for it to ever seem like its protagonists are in any actual peril, undermining its status as a proper Action Comedy. 2007's Hot Fuzz, for all its Bad Boys II-lambasting glory, also feels a little too clever to qualify.
Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum in 22 Jump Street. Photo / AP
2010's The Other Guys was a popular and often well-observed pisstake of Action Comedy conventions, but again, the threat never felt realy because it was too overtly comedic.
It's a tricky line to tread, and I thought 2008's Pineapple Express landed just on the right side of it.
2010's Kick-Ass attempted to push an old school Action Comedy through a superhero meat-grinder, and the results were pretty successful. Then the turdful sequel came out and tainted my love for the original.
The two superhero movies that have come closest to being an old school Action Comedy in my perspective are Kick-Ass (for the violent humour) and the original Iron Man (for the chatterbox tone).
A scene from Kick-Ass.
The Last Boy Scout screenwriter Shane Black recognised Robert Downey Jr.'s suitability for Action Comedy early when he cast him in 2005's Kiss Kiss Bang Bang - as valiant an attempt to ressurect the sub-genre as there has ever been. It was tonally on-point, but felt a little small.
The increased clout Black now has thanks to writing and directing the very Black-ish Iron Man III has him finally mounting a long-planned project called The Nice Guys, a '70s-set cop film that I am confident will tick many classic action comedy boxes.
Films like the anodyne Mr and Mrs Smith and the coy Charlie's Angels represent the worst of the modern action comedy. Along with films like Red (2010) and its recent sequel, these films see themselves as action comedies, but they're simply too soft to qualify. Is this a reasonable standard to expect? That an action comedy needs to be bad-ass to be an Action Comedy?
Before Let's Be Cops, the most recent film to successfully tap into the Action Comedy well was the Kevin Hart/Ice Cube vehicle Ride Along, which went straight to DVD in this country despite making $134 million at the American Box Office earlier this year.
Ride Along got pretty terrible reviews too, and although Hart can be grating at times, I kinda enjoyed it. Mainly for how it showed affection for the classic Action Comedy. But the film was hindered by its American PG-13 rating, which prevents anything more than one F-word. It's just not an Action Comedy without lots of blue language.
That said, praise be to Let's Be Cops for keeping the Action Comedy dream alive.
* Fan of Action Comedies? Favourite recent examples? Seen Let's Be Cops? Comment below!
