21 Jump Street

Inventive, insane, and totally brilliant, "21 Jump Street" isn't just one of the funniest American movies in years, it's one of the best. The project, shepherded by actor/producer/writer Jonah Hill, is a triumph on every level. The script, written by Hill and Michael Bacall ("Scott Pilgrim vs. the World") perfectly marries action, comedy, and character. It's a triumph in the direction, by sophomores Phil Lord and Chris Miller (coming from the animation world, their first film was the excellent "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs"), which not only fosters an insane level of detail in sight gags and visual jokes but also carves out a style for the two that is uniquely their own.

It's a triumph in the acting, where 2012 standout Channing Tatum (who already turned heads in "Haywire") somehow uses his meathead deadpan to out-funny Jonah Hill. It's even a triumph in smaller aspects of craft like the soundtrack (which ranges from "Straight Outta' Compton" to "I Gotta Crow") and the set design (which replicates the monotony of high school with startling clarity.) "21 Jump Street" isn't just a great comedy - it's a great movie.

The first thing you notice about "Jump Street" is that it's simply operating on a higher level of sophistication than most other comedies we see nowadays. Sure, it has a never-ending parade of dick jokes - but it also has a good story, a flow, and a texture that makes it so much more than that. Comparisons to films like "Wanderlust" or "Your Highness" are unfair. Neither of them have a script, and feature characters throwing jokes at the wall (sometimes literally, as in the Paul Rudd "mirror scene" in "Wanderlust") over and over without much of a laugh. "Jump Street," on the other hand, never once presents a scene you've seen before; even the car chase features the fresh comic idea of student car with passenger breaks. The way Bacall swaps between action and comedy is inspired; one never comes without the other - the gunfights are funny and the comedy sequences are incredibly fast-paced.

Hill, Bacall, and directors Lord/Miller do some incredible things with this film - it's perhaps best described as a mixture of John Hughes-style sweetness and early Woody Allen-style wackiness, aided by a small dose of John Woo-influenced violence. Following Jenko and Schmidt (Hill and Tatum), two police officers sent to do undercover work in a high school because they're "Justin Beiber-looking motherfuckers," the film features everything from hallucinogenic drug use sequences to explosive car chases, with everything in between.

And I'd be remiss if I didn't celebrate the way "Jump Street" is seriously an American comedy take on classic homoerotic John Woo movies like "The Killer" or "Bullet in the Head;" not only in the obvious ways like the use of doves ("because they make you look like a fucking badass") or slow-motion, but also simply in the way the script uses violence and action as an excuse to study the very-close friendship between two men.

Plus, in a quite brilliant flourish, the film is a total commentary on itself. Hill and Tatum use what they know about high school to "get things right" the second time around (even if they're befuddled by new social cliques like hipsters, which they cannot understand). Also, the crew behind the film uses modern tastes and updated mores to get the concept of "21 Jump Street" right for its cinematic reincarnation. Even the police chief, who opens the film, comments on Hollywood's mania for films based on television shows. "All they do," he says, "is recycle trash and hope that we don't notice." Don't let me paint the wrong picture; the whole film isn't a meta- exercise in self commentary. But the subtext is there; and the script plays it to a T.

But much credit is also due to directors Lord and Miller, who have created a film so visually dense and packed full of side-jokes that I doubt I've seen everything even after two separate viewings. Their detail-obsessed direction, which lends an animated-influence to the construction of the car chases (the gag about failed explosions is something an improv-based director like David Wain would never dream up) as well as to the narrative (they love using on-screen graphics) turns "Jump Street" into something that is visually miles away from the average comedy. It will surely please fans of the original show, who will notice nods both big and small to the source material. These guys are truly intricate in their filmmaking; and I can't wait to see what they do next.

"21 Jump Street" is one of the most original American comedies in a long time, worthy of mention among the very top shelf. And it's also a brilliant genre movie mash-up; a perfect gift not just for fans of Apatow-style debauchery but also for film nerds who will appreciate the nods to 80s action films and other cop-movie tropes. Not too many action-comedies can keep all cylinders firing on both sides of the coin, but "Jump Street" pulls it off. It's exciting, it's engrossing, it's simply great. I can't wait to see it again.