22 Jump Street

The 2014 film by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller is a break up story wearing a police plot. Every beat between Schmidt and Jenko is a relationship beat, jealousy, couples therapy, a trial separation, and the drug case only gives them somewhere to argue. It announces in its first ten minutes that it is doing the same job again, then keeps saying so. Whether it works depends on how long you can stay with a comedy narrating its own formula. How the cast was assembled tells you the register: Jillian Bell won her part from an audition in which she improvised with Jonah Hill for twenty minutes, insulting him as much as she possibly could. The closing credits are not a stinger but a separately designed short. The studio Alma Mater produced around twenty full size posters, printed and hand painted board games and action figures, and put over fifty people on it. Miller has said they rebuilt the idea because audiences were sad the pair would not stay together. The film opened at number one in North America on 57.1 million dollars and took 331.3 million worldwide. A good fit if you stay seated when the credits roll and can let the investigation run second to the friendship. Not for you if you want the case itself solved.