"Buddy cop blocking"
Mild spoilers for The Hurt Locker will follow. Although if you haven’t seen it and aren’t planning on seeing it tomorrow, I’m not going to give away anything that will ruin it, and I might help you understand what all the fuss is about.
Is this familiar to anybody?
Sergeant [JT Sanborn] is an [aspiring] family man and sensible veteran [soldier] just trying to make it through the day unscathed. [Staff] Sergeant [William James] is a suicidal loose cannon [bomb defusing specialist] who doesn’t care if he even lives to see the end of the day. Reluctantly thrown together to solve the mysterious [bombing of a street in Iraq], the unlikely duo [encounters] a dangerous ring of [Iraqi insurgents] employing ex-military mercenaries. After a tragic turn of events, the mission becomes personal and the mismatched investigators must learn to trust one another as they wage a two-man war against [ennui, meaningless death and the inhumanity of neocolonial geopolitics].
Oh, I know where I saw this! It was drawn from an IMDB Plot Summary:
Sergeant Roger Murtaugh is an aging family man and sensible veteran police officer just trying to make it through the day unscathed. Sergeant Martin Riggs is a suicidal loose cannon cop who doesn’t care if he even lives to see the end of the day. Reluctantly thrown together to solve the mysterious murder of a banker’s daughter, the unlikely duo uncovers a dangerous ring of drug smugglers employing ex-military mercenaries. After a tragic turn of events, the mission becomes personal and the mismatched investigators must learn to trust one another as they wage a two-man war against a deadly criminal organization.
Look familiar? Unless you’re one of OTI’s valued younger readership, it should. It’s from 1987’s Lethal Weapon, perhaps the definitive “buddy cop” movie of the last forty years, made back when Mel Gibson was the sexiest man alive.
Yeah, the world has turned upside down several times since then. I hear there’s an iPhone app that can measure the rotational velocity. But one thing has held constant – the buddy cop movie is still close to all our hearts. Oh, except now they give it Academy Awards (or maybe they will – check out the Oscars next weekend).
How far does the similarity between The Hurt Locker and Lethal Weapon go? (Farther than you think) What are the differences? And what does this say about how we’ve changed as people since the salad days of Riggs and Murtaugh? Read on…
I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to pick my favorite cliches from the 84 comments we received. Most comments had multiple entries. So in total, we got hundreds and hundreds of cliches (approximately half an episode of 24). It took me hours to write this post; the fact that there was absolutely no prize at stake makes it all the more embarrassing.
But in all seriousness, I’m astonished at how clever you all are. There were many fantastic lines that had me giggling on the subway, and I’m sure that if I sat down to do it again I’d pick a completely different set of cliches. So basically, feel free to disregard this post entirely.
In a world where summer blockbusters loomed right around the corner…
Only one website could hold a contest to celebrate…
Is that animated GIF giving you a seizure yet? Good. You will need to build up your tolerance to rapid-fire explosions if you plan on surviving summer movie season.
Summer movies are all about… good Lord, that thing is annoying. Okay, everybody click “More” to get rid of it. I’ll see you on the other side…
Thanks to everyone who submitted to the First Annual Overthinkingit Linda Hamilton Memorial Women In Action Screenwriting Contest. Our judges are hard at work scrutinizing the entries and preparing to
pick the winner!
Expect the big news and discussion in December.