Best & Worst: Buddy-Cop Movies

Best: Dead Heat (1988)

Just to be perfectly clear, we’re aware that this is an utterly preposterous portion of ‘80s trash. However, anyone who doesn’t think the premise of a human/zombie police pairing isn’t the dictionary definition of awesomeness is clearly missing a soul. Much like a zombie, in fact!

Boasting lashings of gore, some top trash-talk and Vincent Price as a baddie with a fiendish plot to create a production line of zombie gangsters, Dead Heat is the ultimate guilty pleasure of buddy-cop movies. As the poster says, “you can’t keep a good cop dead.” Amen to that.

Worst: National Security (2003)

Here he is…Martin Lawrence wasn’t going to get away with an entry on the Best list without a nod to National Security , possibly the worst film he’s ever been involved with. And yes, that does include Big Momma’s House .

Lawro plays loudmouth wannabe cop Earl, who got chucked out of the academy for, you guessed it, being a loudmouth. Now a security guard, he ends up teaming with Steve Zahn, the officer he got chucked off the force after falsely accusing him of a racist beatdown. Sounding funny yet? No, thought not. Give it a wide, wide berth.

Best: Hot Fuzz (2007)

Having conquered the rom-zom-com with Shaun Of The Dead , Edgar Wright turns his hand to the cop movie with pleasingly knowing results. It’s certainly not perfect by any means, with a slightly weighty running time, and a plot that sags slightly towards its denouement.

However, in terms of OTT buddy-cop fun, it’s hard to beat. Simon Pegg and Nick Frost can do this sort of whip-smart banter in their sleep, but that doesn’t make it any less enjoyable, whilst the action sequences are deliriously kick-ass as well, the gleeful shootout in the village supermarket being a particular highlight.

Worst: Showtime (2002)

A cop-comedy featuring Eddie Murphy and Robert De Niro at the tail-end of their careers could be expected to be many things, but who knew it could be so boring?

The two A-listers shamelessly phone this one in, retreading the grizzled tough-guy and streetwise show-off roles they’ve played a thousand times before. Still, it’s tough to blame them when the cop-show spoofery they’ve got to work with is this lame. When even a William Shatner cameo fails to raise a smile, you know you’re in trouble.