Where has the Buddy Cop Flick Gone?

The 1980s seem like they were a great time. Though I was technically born in the 80s, I don’t actually have memories of them so I must resort to looking at them through movies, music and popular culture.

As far as music goes, it’s my favorite decade. There are two HUGE realms of music that I love both of from that time – 80s pop and 80s metal – and it seems like there’s a never-ending supply of good music. Compare that to today where there’s only a handful of artists I’m really enthusiastic about and the case gets even stronger for the 80s. Nostalgia 1, Modernity 0.

Though that’s great and all, I think the real strength of the 80s was the cheesy-yet-incredible filmmaking. It was truly the peak of both high school screwball comedies and buddy cop movies and the world is a better place for it.

You may be wondering what prompted this sudden stint of nostalgia. This past summer, I think it all started after I watched the Back to the Future series on three consecutive nights. I realized how awesome like everything in that movie was and it made me wish I had been around for it to come out in theaters.

However, most recently, the movie that made me wish I grew up 20 years ago was Tango & Cash. Though not a “good” movie by any means, it is one of the best “good bad” movies I’ve ever seen (for more information, see the entry from Saturday, February 7th). I’m not sure how easy it would be to make another movie that is this corny, this over-the-top, and this awesome all at the same time. Aside from the writing and the action and all that, you have Kurt Russell and Sylvester Stallone IN THEIR PRIMES as a fantastic on-screen duo. Cinema doesn’t get better.

Watching it with friends, nearly every scene we came across we would say, “There’s no way this can get any better. (What just happened) was the coolest and most awesome thing ever!” Then, without failing, the next scene each time would blow the previous scene out of the water. It was incredible and it made me happy on the inside.

There will never be a movie like this made today. First of all, I don’t know if there are two super cool action stars that would be up for such a role. Second of all, and more importantly, the stuff that would come out today that would be written in a similar fashion would just be dumb. There’s a fine line between making something that’s enjoyably over-the-top / awesomely bad and something that just is painful to watch. I fear that if this happened today that one of the two actors would be Vin Diesel.

Enough said. That would be terrible.