Film Review: 21 Jump Street

Certificate: 15 (crude and sexual content, pervasive language, drug material, teen drinking and some violence)
Directed By: Phil Lord & Chris Miller
Cast: Jonah Hill, Channing Tatum, Brie Larson, Dave Franco, Rob Riggle, DeRay Davis, Ice Cube, Dax Flame, Chris Parnell, Ellie Kemper
Budget: $42 million
Runtime: 109 minutes
Trailer: Watch

You would think that the odd-couple cop movie doesn't have much left to offer the genre in terms of originality, but never underestimate what a touch of Jonah Hill can bring to a film. To be sure, 21 Jump Street is a delightful little package which is part police academy, part high-school comedy which makes some amusing observations particularly poignant to those of us now in our mid-twenties.

As teens Schmidt (Hill) and Jenko (Tatum) were each other's antithesis, the former your quintessential nerd and the latter your stereotypical jock. Now adults, best friends and partners in the police force, these two bumbling cops are sent back to high-school on an undercover mission to bust a drug ring. However, the dynamic duo are quick to note how different the place is since they were last there.

Yes, 21 Jump Street is your typical fish-out-of-water scenario, but what's more amusing is how it picks up on the shifts in cultural trends over the last ten years. These two young cops are barely out their teens, but in less than ten years they soon find out how what was once cool is no longer. It's a scenario any young thing might expect from their parents; asking whether Nickelback are cool, mistakingly naming every games console a Playstation and boasting to their friends what you got in your "O-Levels", but it is something you're less likely to expect from someone in their twenties. However, the sad truth is that I, as a young man in his mid-twenties, am increasingly being forced to admit that I don't have a clue anymore as to what's cool and what's not. I swore I would never let it happen, but the plight presented here by Schmidt and Jenko is one I can wholly sympathise with.

To illustrate, movies of the late nineties and early two-thousands such as American Pie or Mean Girls portrayed high-schools to be incredibly cliquey, catty places where sporty jocks and bitchy cheerleaders ruled the roost. Returning, Schmidt and Jenko find this is no longer the case; the popular kids are tech-savvy eco-warriors, politically correct to a falt. Jenko, the popular jock during his day is bewildered while Schmidt ironically finds himself in his element. What's great about how 21 Jump Street portrays this though is that it never forcefully hammers this point home, instead teasing those of us now in our twenties that we're well on our way to being the uncool archetypes of our parents we swore we'd never be.

Performances are good all round, but the dialogue is particularly sharp, featuring a plethora of sharp put-downs most enjoyably delivered by one Ice Cube. Moreover 21 Jump Street  ranges from slapstick to deliberate absurdity as the jokes never stop. The consistent stream of wisecracks, which are fortunately very funny as well, make this an easily accessible and breezy comedy. Perhaps what doesn't work so well however is the amalgamation of high-school and cop comedy in what seems to be two slightly disjointed story lines. While the two attempt to fuse, it's not particularly convincing as if to say it all feels slightly adlib. This is especially prevalent in the third act where everything seems to lose focus a little bit.

Despite being quite a chaotic affair, 21 Jump Street remains a light hearted and enjoyable entertainment. It works far better as a high-school comedy than a cop one, and it's a tad of a shame that its plot is a bit all over the place, but the laughs keep coming that you will scarcely mind.

Film Review: Moneyball

When successful sports teams go on to win major tournaments people talk about difficult to pin down attributes such as skill, spirit and luck. Yes, one way of judging athletes is how hard they can whack a ball or how quickly they can get from point A to point B, but what if you could break all this down to a set of averages and statistics?

Based on the true story of Billy Beane (Pitt), Moneyball charts his transformation of ailing, cash-strapped baseball team, the Oakland Athletics, into bonafide record breakers. Poaching gifted young analyst Peter Brand (Hill) from a rival team, the two embark on a project which not only rejuvenated the Oakland Athletics' fortunes, but revolutionised the entire sport of baseball.

While in many ways Moneyball bares all the classic hallmarks of a great sports movie (underdogs, the 'big game', a former superstar lacking in confidence and a coach's rousing pep talk), surprisingly it features very little in the way of baseball. Certainly this is not a film where the players are the heros, reduced to mere spreadsheets and powerpoint presentations. Likewise, on-field antics are only ever portrayed through a haphazard trickle of stock-footage of the Oakland Athletics' 2002 season. Rather, Moneyball is more concerned with the behind the scenes of running a sports team. It's not passion or spirit that are the order of the day here, but the law of averages.

It is Beane and Brand's gamble which is of preeminence here. Losing his best players and sporting a meagre budget one-third that of the New York Yankees', Billy Beane turns to bean counter Peter Brand, a gifted young Yale economics graduate with no sports background. Brand develops a formula which calculates the percentages of how often a player gets on base, therefore increasing the likelihood of runs, as opposed to the conventional method of judging how well players can hit or catch a ball. Armed with Brand's blueprint, the two rummage through the bargain bin of baseball searching for players nobody wants, but who between them complement each other with their combined averages.

And yet, for a film about cold, hard numbers Moneyball still manages to show a surprising amount of heart. Berated by the haggard soothsayers who assume to represent supreme authority over all things baseball and the rest of what conventional wisdom has to say, Beane and Brand remain inextricably woven to an idea. Their fortitude is unerring, their impassioned dedication to an otherwise clinical methodology providing a capacious emotional payoff. You just want their plan to succeed, the new to put the arrogance of the old in its place. Most of all you want Beane - who never made it as a player himself - to prove all the prophets of doom wrong and to finally realise his dream of leaving an indelible legacy on the sport.

While verging on being irritatingly obnoxious, a trait which seems to come with the territory of being a General Manager in baseball, Pitt's Beane also has a cheeky charm which is equally, annoyingly, likeable. However it is Hill's soft-spoken humbleness which almost steals the show. You'll recognise his idiosyncrasies instantly but Hill does so well at underplaying the role that he'll have to be careful less he becomes a serious actor. Alone these two are great, but together they're even better. Pitt's Beane a ball of boundless energy and social intelligence coupled with Hill's Brand who's an understated genius in his own right make the real winning formula in Moneyball. Perhaps a small slight however is how focussed it is on Beane and Brand's effort. Seymour Hoffman's excellent role as surly and obstinate coach Art Howe for example should have been more central in proceedings.

Further, while film's home stretch is well done, it is perhaps a tad too downplayed, serving to leave a bit of a muted ending which somewhat attenuates the film's first two acts. If you're incredibly pedantic you could also pick at some of the temporal anomalies which pop up. Given that the film is set in 2002, you may scratch your head upon seeing flatscreen TVs - a time before they'd been commercially released - as well as Beane's daughter singing 'The Show' by Lenka, a song released in 2008. Admittedly there is also an incredible amount of incomprehensible baseball jargon, but the great thing about Moneyball is that this never takes away from something which is consistently enjoyable to watch.

Generally there's not a lot to dislike about Moneyball. This is a film less about baseball, more a fascinating insight into two men's methodology of creating a winning sports team than of the actual team itself. It is an alluring tale of genius, insanity and blind luck, and still as much a rousing sports film as it is about sticking it to the man. One of the most pleasant surprises of 2011.

Film Review: Get Him to the Greek

I've never really 'got' Russell Brand. People laud him as being 'funny' and 'intelligent', two traits I scarcely detect in the man. Sure, unlike many comedians he uses big, clever words and appears to be well read, but this does not necessarily strike an accord with intelligence. Thus the only conclusion I can come to to explain the phenomenon that is Russell Brand is that his fan base, who are not as well-read, instantly equate his admittedly sometimes eloquent use of words to intellect. Elitistly put, they're idiots. That is not to say that a dislike or hate Russell Brand, rather that I am at a total loss as to why this semi-talented, flamboyant extrovert commands the popularity he does. Regardless of my incredulity, Brand has actually starred in a couple of films that have amused me, this being one of them. In what is essentially a spin-off of Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Brand reprises his role as British rock star Aldous Snow in Get Him to the Greek. You need not have seen Forgetting Sarah Marshall, but there are a couple of 'in-jokes' that pepper the film which you may not get otherwise. Anyhow, onward!

With Pinnacle Records caught in a global recession and falling music sales, junior executive Aaron Green (Hill) comes up with the idea to boost profits by resurrecting the career of his idol, washed-out has-been British rock star Aldous Snow (Brand), by staging a sell-out gig at the Greek Theatre in LA. However, if the tabloids are to be believed, gaining the compliance of boozed-up, drug addicted rock stars is an entirely different kettle of fish.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall is a somewhat ironic title, given that while a pleasant film, it is forgettable. Two things about the film however remained pervasive; the hedonistic Aldous Snow character and Jonah Hill's performance as obsessed fan. Naturally then it is not too surprising that the two are reunited here in this sequel of sorts, allowing Brand to gain a promotion from supporting actor to super star. Likewise Hill takes on a main role, albeit not as the same Sarah Marshall character, but somewhat confusingly happens to be just as much as an Aldous Snow super-fan. Hill acts as the down-to-earth, sensible, grounding character, enabling Brand to take on the hyperbolic rock star as a sort of cavalier cross between Michael McKean, Liam Gallagher and, well, himself. This essentially amounts to a fairly typical mismatched-buddy affair. Whilst an enjoyable romp with some genuinely hilarious moments, especially the mock music videos throughout, Get Him to the Greek unfortunately suffers from incoherency.

Brand is fine as the egotistical, self-absorbed twat we've all come to recognise in Bono and Bob Geldoff, but because Snow embodies the rock star clichés so well, it becomes a bit tedious to watch as the film goes on. Indeed, the film embarks on so many tangents to try and explain why Snow is such a prat in the first place that it begins to become difficult to squeeze funnies out of them. Indeed, it descends somewhat into dullness all too frequently for my liking. Fortunately however there are enough bright spots to make this film entertaining enough. Notably, and somewhat surprisingly, Sean Combs' (P.Diddy, Puff Daddy, Diddly Pop, Piddly D, whatever...) steals the show as big cheese of Pinnacle Records, Sergio. Also worth mentioning is the music of Snow's ex-wife, Jackie Q (Byrne), sporting some incredibly debauched, yet equally hilarious lyrics.

Get Him to the Greek is patchy. Hilarious in places, dull in others. It misses a few tricks but if you've got nothing better to do and don't know what to stick in your DVD player, it's one of those kind of films you would pop in for the occasion. "I'm mind fucking you right now".