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{{Short description|Film and television genre}}
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{{original research|date=August 2017}}
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'''Buddy cop''' is a film and television genre with plots involving two people of very different and conflicting personalities who are forced to work together to solve a crime and/or defeat criminals, sometimes learning from each other in the process. The two are normally either [[police officer]]s (''cops'') or [[secret agent]]s, but some films or TV series that are not about two officers may still be referred to as ''buddy cop films/TV series''. It is a subgenre of [[buddy film]]s. They can be either [[comedy film|comedies]] or [[action film|action]]-[[thriller film|thrillers]].
Frequently, although not always, the two heroes are of different ethnicity or cultures. However, regardless of ethnicity, the central difference is normally that one is "wilder" than the other: a hot-tempered [[iconoclasm|iconoclast]] is paired with a more even-tempered partner. Often the "wilder" partner is the younger of the two, with the even-tempered partner having more patience and experience. These films sometimes also contain a variation on the [[good cop/bad cop]] [[Motif (literature)|motif]], in which one partner is kinder and law-abiding, while the other is a streetwise, "old school" police officer who tends to break (or at least bend) the rules. Another frequent plot device of this genre is placing one of the partners in an unfamiliar setting (like a different city or foreign country) or role (like requiring police field work of a non-cop, rookie, or office-bound "desk jockey").  In these cases, they are usually guided by the other partner.
In his review of ''[[Rush Hour (1998 film)|Rush Hour]]'', [[Roger Ebert]] coined the term "Wunza Movie" to describe this subgenre, a pun on the phrase "One's a..." that could be used to describe the contrasts between the two characters in a typical film.<ref>{{cite web | author=Ebert, Roger| date= September 18, 1998| title=Rush Hour | work=rogerebert.com | url=http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19980918/REVIEWS/809180303/1023 | access-date=2006-06-25}}</ref>
The [[cliché]] was satirized in the film ''[[Last Action Hero]]''. While the movie in itself was a buddy cop film (i.e. pairing a fictional cop with a real world boy), the film's police department obligatorily assigned all cops a conflicting buddy to work with, even to the extreme of one officer being partnered with a cartoon cat.
A subgenre of the buddy cop film is the '''buddy cop-dog movie''', which teams a cop with a [[dog]], but uses the same element of unlikely partnership to create comedic hijinks, such as ''[[Turner & Hooch]]'', ''[[Top Dog (1995 film)|Top Dog]]'' and ''[[K-9 (film)|K-9]]''.
==History==
[[Akira Kurosawa]]'s 1949 Japanese film ''[[Stray Dog (film)|Stray Dog]]'', starring [[Toshiro Mifune]] and [[Takashi Shimura]], is considered a precursor to the buddy cop film genre.<ref>{{cite journal|title=FilmInt|journal=Film International|year=2006|volume=4|issue=1–6|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=y50qAQAAIAAJ|access-date=28 April 2012|page=163|publisher=[[Arts Council Norway|Kulturrådet]]|location=Sweden|quote=In addition to being a masterful precursor to the buddy cop movies and police procedurals popular today, Stray Dog is also a complex genre film that examines the plight of soldiers returning home to post-war Japan.}}</ref> Other early pioneers of the buddy cop film genre are the 1967 American film ''[[In the Heat of the Night (film)|In the Heat of the Night]]'' and 1974's ''[[Freebie and the Bean]]''. The genre was later popularized by the 1982 film ''[[48 Hrs.]]'', starring [[Eddie Murphy]] and [[Nick Nolte]], then also the 1984 film ''[[Beverly Hills Cop]]'' along with its 1987 sequel ''[[Beverly Hills Cop II]]'', all three are among the most successful buddy cop films. The genre was further popularized by the 1986 film ''[[Running Scared (1986 film)|Running Scared]]'' starring [[Gregory Hines]] and [[Billy Crystal]] and the 1987 film ''[[Lethal Weapon]]'' starring [[Mel Gibson]] and [[Danny Glover]]. The genre was revisited multiple times by ''Lethal Weapon'' creator [[Shane Black]], who went on to write ''[[The Last Boy Scout]]'', ''[[Last Action Hero]]'', ''[[Kiss Kiss Bang Bang]]'', and ''[[The Nice Guys]]'', all of which play off the mismatched-partners (if not always specifically cops) theme.
==See also==
{{category see also|Buddy cop films}}
==References==
{{Reflist}}
{{Film genres}}
[[Category:Films about police officers|*]]
[[Category:Film genres]]
[[Category:Buddy cop films| ]]
[[Category:Comedy films by genre]]
[[Category:1980s in film]]