Tarantino Entertains with Darkly Funny Western "The Hateful Eight"

Samuel L. Jackson and Walton Goggins lead an amazing cast in

Quentin Tarantino's latest, The Hateful Eight.

And so the pattern repeats.

Three years ago, I wrote a review comparing Wes Anderson and Quentin Tarantino that discussed how each director had plowed through mid-career criticisms by taking a hard left into the idiosyncratic approaches that were supposedly holding them back, only to emerge once again as critical darlings.

A year later, Anderson continued to prove my point with Grand Budapest Hotel, and it seems Tarantino has followed suit with The Hateful Eight, a western that revolves around a collection of nasty sorts trapped together at a secluded stopover during a blizzard not long after the conclusion of the Civil War.

Intoxicating in the way that only great Tarantino can be, The Hateful Eight is the quickest three hours I’ve ever spent in a theater. And that's the case even though I saw the film in its glorious 70mm Roadshow Exhibition, which ran with an introductory musical overture and an intermission between acts, while also providing wider, more detailed images... because, you know, Tarantino.

Like many of the director’s films, The Hateful Eight is told in chapters, some of which are out of order, and built around a series of long, tense and often side-splitting conversations that eventually boil over into violence. For all the pomp and circumstance that came with the roadshow experience, the film is basically a talky chamber piece with the attitude and accoutrements of a mean-spirited western.

More specifically, The Hateful Eight is a western-flavored dark comedy mash up of And Then There Were None, Tarantino’s own Reservoir Dogs, and any number of plays by Sartre or Pinter with the racial tensions of post Civil-War Americans hanging over every moment. It's thought-provoking, titillating and, above all, entertaining as hell.

Other than a win for the eerily foreboding score from the legendary Ennio Morricone and a nomination for Jennifer Jason Leigh's hilariously gnarly performance, the Oscars stayed away from The Hateful Eight, which makes quite a bit of sense given the content. However, this is a master class in acting, writing, directing, editing and costuming, with Goggins and the underrated Jackson (who easily could've been included in my piece on #OscarSoWhite) providing standout work.

Having said all of that, I have some issues with the film, all of which are built around character motivation and plotting. To talk about them, I kind of need to spoil the movie a bit, so, spoiler warning. Enroute to Red Rock to deliver the fugitive Daisy Domergue (Leigh) for hanging, bounty hunter John Ruth (Kurt Russell) encounters Major Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson), a black bounty hunter and former Union solider in possession of three dead bounties, and Chris Mannix (Walton Goggins), a former Lost-Causer militiamen who now claims to be the new sheriff of Red Rock. Ruth allows both men aboard his stage coach, and they set out for Minnie's Habadashery to seek refuge from the storm.

Upon arriving at the habadashery, they meet hangman Oswaldo Mobray (Tim Roth), cowboy Joe Gage (Michael Madsen), former Confederate general Sanford Smithers (Bruce Dern), and Bob (Demián Bichir), a Mexican watching over the place while Minnie visits her mother. Tensions escalate on multiple fronts. Suspicious that any of this lot could be in cahoots with Domergue, Ruth forcefully disarms all but Warren since they have met before and have agreed to protect one another's bounties. Meanwhile, Warren feuds with both Smithers and Mannix over race and doubts the legitimacy of Bob's standing as the operator of the habadashery, an establishment he has frequented many times.

A third act flashback reveals Mobray, Gage and Bob are all members of the Jody Domergue gang and that they, along with Jody (Channing Tatum), arrived at the habadashery ahead of Ruth’s party so that they could kill him and free Jody’s sister. They kill Minnie and all other inhabitants of the habadashery except Smithers (they reason another occupant will add to their cover), hide several guns around the place, and then Jody hides beneath the floor boards just before the rest of the lead characters arrive.

During an argument between Warren and Smithers in which Warren arms Smithers and then baits him to draw on him so Warren can kill the older man, Gage secretly poisons the coffee, ultimately leading to the very gruesome poisoning of Ruth and his driver OB. Ruth almost kills Daisy before he dies while her brother remains in hiding and the his conspirators simply watch instead recovering their hidden weapons and taking advantage of the fact that Warren and Mannix are completely distracted. This is particularly problematic for Gage. He may have acted on his own in poisoning the coffee and thus surprised his compatriots, but then why is he also so unprepared to react to the aftermath?

Instead, they stand around like innocents allowing Warren to take control, arm Mannix and kill Bob. Only then does Jody fire upon Warren from below the floor boards, but once again he and his gang fail to act decisively (something made even more annoying by the later revelation that Mobray has already armed himself off screen) allowing Mannix and Warren to gather themselves and regroup. Although this development sets up a dynamic Mexican standoff and leads to a strong ending that unites Warren and Mannix against these outlaws, it also stretches credulity. What was the point of lying in wait and having a cover if you were just going to act like total fools at every opportunity? Sure they could’ve never anticipated that Warren and Mannix would show up with Ruth, and they absolutely never would’ve known about the dynamic between those men and Smithers, but those surprises still don’t explain their awful play here.

I think it would be foolish to suggest I have a better idea how to craft a script than Tarintino, but I’ll give it a go anyhow. I think the whole sequence would’ve played a lot better if Gage wasn’t one of the Domergue gang, but rather just another inhabitant of the haberdashery like Smithers and another wrinkle in their plan. Maybe he shows up in between when Jody goes down below the floor and Ruth’s arrival or maybe they just opt to keep him alive too, but what if he was just a cowboy visiting his mom just like he says, one that made the isolated decision to poison Ruth, not because he wanted to free Daisy, but because he was enraged that Ruth took his gun. That would certainly explain why the gang wasn't prepared to take advantage of Ruth's poisoning, while adding an extra level of chaos to the proceedings. Obviously, I’m just spit balling here, but I think something should’ve been done to diminish this narrative annoyance, which seems to be one of those "the plot required it" situations.

Regardless, even though this element of the film bothered me, it’s really just a problem that keeps me from viewing the film as perfect, because otherwise that’s what it is. Like the best of Tarantino, the film is shot beautifully and populated with great actors cutting loose with a well-observed and irreverent script filled to the brim with long, tense moments that seem tailor-made for the stage. And the ending, oh boy that ending -- it's some kind of perfect.

"Foxcatcher" Doesn't Measure Up to Bennett Miller's Previous Output

Mark Ruffalo and Channing Tatum shine, but Foxcatcher is an airless effort.

With Foxcatcher, Bennett Miller (Capote, Moneyball) has crafted yet another pensively restrained, immaculately composed and expertly acted examination of unbridled obsession and determination and held it at arms length. However, this time out, the distanced and disciplined approach that worked so well in the director's earlier films make Foxcatcher feel kind of inert and airless.

Foxcatcher focuses on the relationship between Olympic wrestling brothers Mark (Channing Tatum) and Dave Schultz (Mark Ruffalo) and John Du Pont (Steve Carrell), the creepy millionaire who served as their benefactor. Both Mark and Dave are former Olympic champs, but Mark lives firmly in the shadow of his older brother, which makes him ideal prey for the resentful and self-important Du Pont, a man who knows a thing or two about living in the shadows of family (in his case, his mother).

There's not much point in saying any more about the film's plot. A tragedy involving these men attained headline-grabbing true crime infamy, but the particulars of that incident are opaque, poorly defined, and relegated to the film's final moments. Foxcatcher is much more concerned with ruminating on its long list of themes, including isolation and repression, class disparity and subjugation, unchecked entitlement and compromised integrity, and, if all that isn't enough, the fractured male psyche and distorted American values. There's so much going on here, and yet it feels like almost nothing happens.

The film is technically accomplished, and the actors all do nice work. Ruffalo, who has made a career of breathing life and dimensionality into thinly written parts, is especially affecting as the warm-hearted, at-ease-with-himself Dave, and Tatum continues to impress with the emotional brute routine. Both actors bring an ape-like physicality to their roles, while doing a good job of communicating an innate brotherly bond.

Meanwhile, Carrell is buried under prosthetics and definitely a world away from his typical roles. He's pretty solid throughout, and great in isolated moments, but his acting calls a lot of attention to itself and not in a good way. His approach stands in stark contrast to his more natural costars, and the fake nose threatens to overpower his performance. I'd say there's more good than bad in the portrayal, but there's definitely something off-key about it.

Foxcatcher is a major comedown for Miller, which maybe isn't fair given just how good Capote and Moneyball were, but the film isn't some major catastrophe. It's certainly worth catching -- Ruffalo's performance alone is worth the time, and there is a ton of other stuff to admire about the film besides. The thing just feels a little empty to me, and ultimately this is one of those films that I'm bummed I didn't like more. B-

Roland Emmerich Does His Thing with the Ridiculous "White House Down"

He uses this gun to kill one guy. One.

It’s been almost three months since I’ve posted on here. That was by design – with graduation on the horizon, I’ve been focusing most of my spare time on nursing studies. However, now that my schedule is easing up, I’m itching to get back to writing reviews.

Since I’ve been gone so long, it might seem that I’d jump at the opportunity to review one of the good movies I saw during the time off. However, to get back in the swing of things, I figure I’ll go for the softball instead. Gravity can wait. Let’s talk some White House Down, which, to be clear, is the assault on the presidential residence movie starring Magic Mike and Django, not the one with King Leonidas and Two Face.

White House Down is slickly made product that’s populated with a slew of great actors and features some impressive scenes of visual destruction. It’s got two talented leads in Channing Tatum and Jamie Foxx, and they have an appealing buddy chemistry that’s bound to entertain most people. Of course, it’s also a loud, dumb and cliché spectacle of the variety that can only be delivered by the likes of Roland Emmerich (Independence Day, 2012).

Basically, this thing is a McDonald’s Big Mac. It’s processed crap for sure, but it’s kind of tasty and, they’ve thrown on all that lettuce, some salty pickles and that Thousand Island sauce. Is it better than something like The King’s Speech? Well, no. But a Big Mac isn’t better than king crab legs, and I’m still a lot more likely to eat a Big Mac.

Like Independence Day before it, White House Down has some clunker moments that somehow manage to make it that much more enjoyable. One great example: Early on there’s a scene where we find out Tatum’s John Cale missed his daughter’s color guard recital (or something), and, of course, in the climatic moments of the film he gets to watch as she courageously bandies the presidential flag about on the White House lawn to convince incoming fighter pilots not to blow up the building.

That's pretty much all I got. However, I will say that once, just once, I'd love to see a movie where a character escapes death by a bullet courtesy of an everyday object in his or her pocket (a bible, a pocket watch, whatever) only to be killed moments later. Or, in lieu of that, maybe a comedy where cops or soldiers are issued everyday items with the stated purpose that it could one day take a bullet for them. C

Side Effects Offers Engagingly Pulpy Thrills

Need an oily screen presence who can be a patsy and a

master manipulator? Jude Law's your man.

When I first heard Steven Soderbergh was going to tackle a film focusing on pharmaceuticals, I instantly imagined a heavy-hitting exposé in the vein of Traffic. Then, when I saw the trailer for Side Effects, I thought “Oh no, ok, this is actually going to be a more focused ethical commentary on therapists’ increasing willingness to overmedicate patients.” There’s some of that in the opening reel, but Side Effects is ultimately much more concerned with being an engagingly pulpy psychological thriller about a wrongly accused man.

The film focuses on Emily (Rooney Mara), a woman whose husband Martin (Channing Tatum) has recently been released from prison after serving four years for insider trading. This causes Emily to sink once again into depression (she previously had a hard time dealing with Martin’s incarceration), leading her to attempt suicide and thus come under the care of psychiatrist Jonathan Banks (Jude Law).

Banks has no misgivings about taking lucrative consulting jobs for drug studies, but he does genuinely seem to care about his patients. He even contacts Emily’s former shrink (Catherine Zeta Jones) in the hopes of learning more facts about her condition. Banks places Emily on a new drug that controls her depression but leads to sleepwalking. Ultimately, it leads to a tragedy that drastically alters the lives of all the principles.

I’d rather not give anything else away – most of the fun comes from watching how things unfold. I will say that Soderbergh follows Magic Mike (read my review here) with another foray into a genre enmeshed in camp only to emerge with a grade-A cinematic experience. Side Effects manages to be a well-oiled character piece and riotous B-movie thriller all at once. It comes from the same general place as Fatal Attraction and Primal Fear, except its far leaner and lived-in thanks to that Steven Soderbergh feeling.

Most girls would not be depressed to have a doting Channing

Tatum return home to them. Rooney Mara isn't most girls.

There’s a great deal of craft in this thing, from the Soderbergh’s deft camerawork to Scott Z. Burns’ delightfully twisted script. Meanwhile, hot off the heels of his Oscar-nominated work in Skyfall, composer Thomas Newman contributes a hypnotically uneasy score. As was the case with their last collaboration, The Good German, Newman’s score may be the only thing about the latest Soderbergh film to be remembered come Oscar time (if, in fact, the Academy goes for it at all).

But it’s the acting that really sets the film apart. Mara continues to show a great deal of range, expertly essaying a tricky character that her Lisbeth Salander would despise. However, it’s Law who steals the show here by brining a whole spectrum of emotions to the table. He’s equal parts compassionate, smug, upstanding, paranoid, self-righteous, and vindictive. It really is a masterful performance, and a case of perfect casting. In Contagion, Soderbergh used Law’s inherent slipperiness to inhabit the bad guy who’s seemingly on the right side. Here, he inverts that setup for even greater results.

Side Effects supposedly marks Soderbergh’s final theatrical release. He’s got one more film to come – an HBO original about Liberace starring Michael Douglas and Matt Damon – but otherwise, he’s headed off into retirement in the hopes of pursuing other artistic endeavors. I’m hoping he takes a few years to refuel and then comes back to us, and great little films like Side Effects are the perfect reason why. A-

Magic Mike Effectively Straddles the Line Between Camp and Art



This pictures captures the first of many, many stripping scenes.

With Magic Mike, director Steven Soderbergh and producers Channing Tatum and Reid Carolin (who star and write, respectively) pull a pretty neat trick.

This is a male stripper movie headed up by Tatum and Matthew McConaughey, and it delivers the goods promised in the trailers. Unsurprisingly, it’s bound to repel straight men, while also providing guilty pleasure to countless women (and gay men) hoping to ogle, hoot and holler with a group of friends.* 

* This really is the type of movie you want to see in a packed theater. In my theater, groups of women and gay men were out in droves and their good natured glee was infectious. Even better: the response of a straight man that came unaware of what he was in for. Somewhere in the middle of the first stripping sequence, when a character disrobed to a thong and jiggled their ass at the camera, he stood up, screamed "Hell no!” and marched out of the theater. Laughter followed.

At the same time, this is a Soderbergh film, and although he doesn’t shy away from offering the audience multiple helpings of manmeat, he also injects Magic Mike with his patented clinical approach and indie sensibilities. The end result is a fun raunchy romp that simultaneously plays as a dark and shrewdly observed slice of life that is as revealing in its details and character moments as it is in its lively and numerous stripping sequences.

The movie tells a pretty simple and formulaic story. Mike (Tatum) is a self-described entrepreneur who has his hands in a variety of businesses in the hopes of raising enough money to eventually start his own custom furniture business. His main source of income just so happens to come from his role as Magic Mike, one of the "cock-rocking kings of Tampa" at Xquisite, a male strip club owned by stripper mentor and emcee Dallas (McConaughey).

In his seven years as a stripper, Mike’s only saved $13,000 toward his dream, but he has created a portfolio, moved into a fairly luxurious pad, and led a high partying lifestyle that includes, as we see in his introductory scene, three-way flings with fuckbuddy  Joanna (Olivia Munn)** and random girls whose names neither can recall. 

** Guys wary of all the male skin, may be interested in the fact that the popular Munn does show off her assets in an early scene (they are displayed shortly after Tatum shows off his behind).

While working his roof tiling gig, Mike befriends Adam (Alex Pettyfer), a 19-year-old who threw away a football scholarship and is now adrift and crashing on the couch of his sister Brooke (Cody Horn). Mike eventually takes the kid under his wing, and it isn’t long before he’s impressed Dallas and joined the crew of Xquisite, alongside Mike and the likes of Ken (White Collar’s Matt Bomer), Big Dick Richie (True Blood’s Joe Manganiello),Tarzan (former wrestler Kevin Nash), and Tito (CSI: Miami’s Adam Rodriguez).

As the story progresses, we see Mike toying with the idea of life after stripping, pursuing his business interests and falling for the straight laced Brooke, all the while Adam begins to venture further and further down a sordid path that not only includes stripping, but also druggy sexual encounters and even some ecstasy dealing.



A girl fails to resist the charms of the guy who brought her kid

brother into the world of stripping and drug use.



The narrative setup isn’t exactly original, but the dialogue and characters are finely written and the execution so assured that there’s no mistaking this for a gender-reversed Showgirls. The film, which is reportedly inspired by Tatum’s previous life as a male stripper, really embraces the little details, showing Mike in a quiet moment flattening crumpled dollar bills or a bespectacled Bick Dick Richie working on a thong with a sewing machine.

It also offers Tatum, who impressed earlier this year in 21 Jump Street, his best role to date. Hollywood is starving for a young movie star, and given the 2012 he’s had and the projects on his upcoming slate, the quickly rising star may be it. Like Brad Pitt and George Clooney before him, he started his career as a sex symbol, but has consistently sought to grow as an actor, seeking out interesting projects, many of which have been headed by fantastic directors. None of them have been better than Soderbergh (who, incidentally helped legitimize Clooney as a big screen force), and it’s worth noting that he saw enough in Tatum when working on Haywire, to work with him on his last two theatrical releases before his much-discussed retirement/break from film.

Tatum rises to the challenge and really digs in with a winning performance that exploits and fine-tunes the laidback charm and restless vulnerability he’s showcased in his better roles. What really makes the performance is how effortless and naturalistic Tatum comes across, whether he’s donning a suit and glasses to talk equity with a loan officer, break dance stripping in the club (displaying moves kept under wraps since his breakthrough role in Step Up), or falling over his words as he tries to convince Brooke (and himself) that he “is not his lifestyle.”

The question of whether or not Mike is, in fact, his lifestyle provides the backbone of the story. He talks about starting his own business and works hard, and yet he’s still living vicariously and has only saved $13,000 in seven years. For a guy brining in several hundred a night tax free, that’s not exactly a lot of money. We’re told Mike has bad credit (and thus can’t get a bank loan), so the implication is that he, like Adam, may have made some dumb decisions when he was a young, wide-eyed party animal and has fallen into a slippery slope situation. 

McConaughey is awesome.

If Adam is the Mike of days gone by, Dallas is set up as what lies ahead for Mike if he doesn’t get off his current course. Dallas is a successful and astute business man, but he’s also a self-deifying blowhard who relishes his seedy existence. While everyone around him gets plenty of chances to strip on the catwalk, the movie wisely saves McConaughey’s big number for the film’s final moments, setting it as the backdrop during which Mike decides whether or not to withdraw himself from such an undesirable future.

The key supporting players are strong.  Pettyfer understates the melodrama nicely, while Horn, despite getting stuck playing the nag, grounds the film and displays excellent chemistry with Tatum. Meanwhile McConaughey, who has unjustly gotten a reputation as a bad actor due to years of mailing it in with generic romantic comedies, reminds how sly a performer he can be, offering up an interpretation that is equal parts magnetic, hilarious, creepy, and delusional. This is a bold performance that literally peaks with McConaughey bending over in from of the camera, and the fact that he was willing to put himself out there, while also delivering on the acting front, is laudable.

Tech aspects are excellent across the board. Serving as his own DP, Soderbergh employs a sepia-tinged filter and offers up some pretty atypical shot selections. Some of these are beautifully evocative and disarming, but the most memorable uses a widescreen frame to depict Adam stumbling upon Big Dick Ritchie fluffing himself prior to a performance (leave it to a craftsman like Soderbergh to shoot a demonstration of penis enlargement both humorously and artfully). 

Having said all of that, the movie isn’t perfect. It’s at least 10 minutes too long, and while almost every scene has a refreshing authenticity, Adam’s first few scenes in the club (particularly the one that necessitates he must go on stage) are silly and poorly constructed. 

And although the casting director deserves plaudits for brining in an eclectic group of beefcakes (particularly Manganiello who has become a major object of lust for the many True Blood fans and Boomer who’s probably one of the most popular gay icons out there right now), they are vastly underused. Initially, I suspected the movie would give them something to do (the first scene with the crew is funny and the roles feel lived in), but they devolve into nothing more than window dressing. Surprisingly, it’s Nash who leaves the greatest impression, injecting a Mickey Rourkeian vibe into his role as Tarzan.

Soderbergh and Tatum will team up for a third time in next

February's The Bitter Pill.



Overall, this is a really strong effort from all involved. There’s obviously a level of camp to the film, and most of the plot beats are formulaic, but the care put into the characters, dialogue, acting and craft aspects enable to film to transcend the core material. It’s a simple story with familiar themes, but Soderbergh and Tatum really hit it out of the park. Their next team up, The Bitter Pill, will see them working with a script from frequent Soderbergh collaborator Scott Z. Burns (The Informant, Contagion), as well as a cast that includes Jude Law, Catherine Zeta Jones and Rooney Mara (in her first performance her Oscar-nominated turn in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo). The film his theaters in eight months, and seeing what the duo has accomplished here, I’m anxiously anticipating it. A

Video Review: The Dilemma Almost Delivers, But Fails

Both these guys bring it in The Dilemma, despite the fact
that it winds up being a mediocre movie.

I went into The Dilemma with low expectations, had those expectations met, and yet came away from the whole ordeal greatly disappointed.

The marketing campaign hammered home the basic storyline of a guy named Ronny (Vince Vaughn) wrestling with how to handle his discovery that Geneva (Winona Ryder) the wife of his best friend and business partner Nick (Kevin James) is cheating with a beefcake named Zip (Channing Tatum). Based on that, I was expecting a pedestrian Vaughn vehicle along the lines of Couples Retreat and Four Christmases. Put more plainly: I was expecting a generic relationship comedy featuring funny and/or enjoyable actors playing down to weak material with some patented Vaughn freak-out rhetoric thrown in for good measure.

Ultimately that is what this thing becomes, and in many ways it’s the worst version of that formula, because almost none of the supporting characters are funny (the exception being Tatum who here hints at the great comic potential he showcased in 21 Jump Street), Vaughn’s big freak-out (a speech at the anniversary dinner of his girlfriend’s parents) is a weak facsimile of his more classic riffs, and the last scene is just so epically hokey.



The last scene in this movie is dumb. Here's a shot from it.

That would be all well in good if the film didn’t have enough interesting, messy developments (i.e. the possibility that Nick is also cheating, the underlying credibility issue Ronny faces given his gambling addiction) to promise something more considered and complicated. The film lays some solid groundwork and Vaughn really delivers, offering up a nicely modulated performance. Midway through, I was hoping this might be more along the lines of the vastly underrated The Break-Up, but sadly it devolved into generic rubbish.

In the end, the film is reminiscent of X-Men: The Last Stand or even Vaughn’s own Fred Claus* – it’s mediocre entertainment, but there’s enough good stuff to indicate a far better movie could’ve been made, making things even more frustrating than if the film had just outright sucked.

 *I actually reviewed this film back in my Collegian days, and its available online here. In reading my own review, it occurs to me just how little progress Vaughn has made in the last five years.** Here’s hoping he can find the right project for his talent soon, because he does bring his A-game here, even if the movie doesn’t deserve it.

** The same can be said for costar Jennifer Connelly (who plays Vaughn’s girlfriend) and director Ron Howard. Connelly hasn’t done anything worthy of her skills since her bit role in Little Children. And other than a cameo from his brother Clint, nothing in this film would indicate it was directed by accomplished and diverse Oscar winner Ron Howard. I was a big fan of Frost Nixon (although I know many others weren’t), but Howard’s been wallowing over the last seven years otherwise, churning out two mediocre Da Vinci Code movies and now this.  Thankfully, things are looking up for both of them. Connelly is reuniting with Requiem for a Dream director Darren Aronofsky (not to mention A Beautiful Mind star Russell Crowe) for Noah, and Howard has a biopic of formula 1 racer Niki Lauda.

21 Jump Street Offers Fresh Take On Old Material

It’s hard to watch the theatrical reimagining of 21 Jump Street and not think of the Ben Stiller/Owen Wilson led Starkly and Hutch. Both films take properties long past their sell by date and attempt to cash in on any remaining name recognition by taking what was once a fairly dramatic cop show and reimagining it as a tongue-in-cheek, mismatched buddy comedy. For each film, plot is beside the point. Instead, they rely upon the crackerjack chemistry of their leads, goofy fringe characters, and weird humor (oddly, both feature a drug-induced tripping balls sequence).

Despite the similarities, 21 Jump Street has been greeted with a far warmer reception. It just took a major haul in its first weekend ($36.3 million) and, with excellent scores from critics and audiences alike, it should have decent legs (a sequel is already in the works). Starsky and Hutch wasn’t a shabby performer in 2004 ($88 million domestic, $170 million worldwide), and it’s actually a solid comedy, but it didn’t inspire sequel/franchise talk and is generally viewed as a minor thing.

The central reason, I believe, is in the approach. There’s a lot of subversive talent on the log sheet for Starsky and Hutch – director Todd Phillips and stars Stiller, Wilson, Vince Vaughn, and Will Ferrell – and yet it’s mostly conventional and downright reverential to the source material (same era, same characters, same car, hell, even the same stylistic cues). Meanwhile, 21 Jump Street takes the premise (cops go undercover in high school) of its predecessor and little else, infusing it with the self-aware irreverence of a Wright/Pegg genre send-up (Sean of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) and the self-reflection and character beats of an Apatow joint (Superbad, Knocked Up).

This film really isn’t parodying the original Jump Street so much as it’s riffing on genre conventions and remakes. The major comic set piece is a car chase sequence that parodies the tendency for things to blow up during movie car chases, and when Nick Offerman’s deputy character tells Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill’s rookie cops that they are being reassigned to Jump Street, he calls it an undercover program that has been revived due to “lack of imagination.”

Adding to the comedy is the fact that, as silly the whole thing gets, the emotional stuff plays. The central relationship is believable and sincerely underlined, and the film has some well-done, under-the-surface thematics concerning friendship and the generational divide. Even the amusingly dark cameo appearance that sees former Jump Street stars Johnny Depp and Peter DeLuise get murdered is used to further along the central bromance (awesome note: Depp indicated he’d only do a cameo if his character was given this type of closure. RIP Tommy Hanson).

I think critics and audiences are also doing cartwheels over this thing due to the central pairing. Although Stiller and Wilson have a strong chemistry in Starsky and Hutch, that film has them milking a familiar dynamic, one they’ve done far more successfully and inventively in other films. This film offers audiences something fresh, especially in the way it provides a whole new showcase for Tatum, who all but walks away with the movie.

There’s something undeniably exciting about watching an actor kill a role the way Tatum does here, especially when it totally deviates from expectation. Tatum has a reputation as a bad actor, and although it’s not entirely earned (he’s pretty decent in A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints and Stop-Loss), movies like GI Joe: Rise of Cobra and Dear John don’t help his case. He’s always displayed a decent screen presence and a certain vulnerability, and both are put to great use here. I’ve been pulling for the guy for a long while, especially because he seems so determined to work with good directors like Michael Mann and Stephen Soderbergh. With the one two punch of The Vow and 21 Jump Street, he’s well positioned right now, and with two interesting-looking Soderbergh movies on the way, I’m digging the direction he’s headed in.

Hill is also quite good in his first post-weight loss role. After getting an Oscar nomination for his subtle Moneyball performance, he makes strides in refining his comic persona here to the point that he capably carries a sweet romantic subplot with costar Brie Larson. I’m still not sure if he can carry a movie on his own (The Sitter bombed last year), but the fact that he can work so well off of so many varying personalities (Michael Cera, Seth Rogen, Russell Brand, Brad Pitt, and Tatum) is impressive.

The rest of the cast acquits themselves nicely, with Larson and Dave Franco (brother of James) providing a good amount of pathos in roles that would normally be pure cookie cutter (Franco’s wounded line reading of “But you bought me taco bell” is still cracking me up). Taking a different approach are Ellie Kemper, Ice Cube and Rob Riggle, all of whom play their characters as broadly as possible. While I wasn’t crazy about Kemper or Cube (more so the nature of the characters really), Riggle killed me (it helps that he’s the focal point of two of the movies funniest sight gags).