Offbeat partners on the beat
Bon Cop Bad Cop was hardly the first movie to pair unlikely police officers, but it did provide a uniquely Canadian take on the genre. Here are just a few other famous constabulary combinations: Black Cop/White Cop: First seen in 1967’s In the Heat of the Night with Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger; the 1970 sequel took as its title the film’s most famous line, “They call me Mr. Tibbs!” It was given a western spin in Blazing Saddles with Cleavon Little and Gene Wilder in 1974, a cop/robber version eight years later with Eddie Murphy and Nick Nolte in 48 Hrs., and a science-fiction twist with 1997’s Men in Black, starring Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones. Murphy also made Beverly Hills Cop, a kind of East Cop/West Cop. Earth Cop/Alien Cop: 1988’s Alien Nation paired Earther Matthew Sykes (James Caan) with offworlder Sam Francisco (Mandy Patinkin). A short-lived TV series and a string of TV movies followed. A big-screen remake is reportedly in the works. Yankee Cop/Irish Cop: A truly excellent comedy, 2011’s The Guard featured Brendan Gleeson as a small-town officer on the Emerald Isle, and Don Cheadle as an FBI agent on the trail of drug traffickers. Gleeson at one point tells the American: “I’m Irish; racism is part of my culture.” Human Cop/Robot Cop: Karl Urban plays the man and Michael Ealy the DRN model android (Dorian) in Almost Human, a short-lived TV series from 2013, set in a crime-ridden future some 30 years hence. North Cop/South Cop: Korea got in on the action this year with Confidential Assignment, starring Hyun Bin as a dashing North Korean detective, and Yoo Hae-jin as his unkempt Southern partner, searching for a Northern defector with stolen currency-printing plates. Short Cop/Tall Cop: 2015’s Hot Pursuit tried to wring laughs from the fact that its co-stars are 5-foot1 (Reese Witherspoon) and fivefoot-seven plus heels (Sofia Vergara). It was a stretch.