Blue Streak
Action movies aren’t my favorite genre. Most of the time, it’s just explosion this, car chase that, romantic subplot, the end. And if there isn’t a romantic subplot, the hero is already married/coupled in some way.
Blue Streak is a somewhat unconventional action comedy. And no romance to distract it from the action or the comedy. Martin Lawrence plays Miles Logan, a jewel thief whose partner double-crosses him. Before getting arrested, Logan hides a jewel in a construction site, hoping to retrieve it when he gets out of prison.
Two years later, he’s released and discovers that construction site has turned into a police station. Through a series of circumstances, he ends up impersonating a cop (and rather well) and forms an “Odd Couple” like partnership with Luke Wilson’s newby detective, Carlson.
The movie’s formulaic but fun, elevated by Lawrence’s mugging. It is special because it subverts the romantic subplot twice. In an early scene, Logan visits the girlfriend he left behind when he went to prison. She rebuffs him. In most movies, he’d be trying to prove himself to her and eventually win her back. In Blue Streak, we never see her again.
There’s an attractive female public defender who monitors the cops not to treat her clients harshly. In most movies, she and the protagonist would be hooking up. Not here. She’s just a solid lawyer, not to be trifled with.
Logan doesn’t get the girl in the end, but he does get the jewel, and he’s built a solid (if temporary) friendship with Carlson, who eventually learns of his real identity, but points out “You’re in Mexico; not my jurisdiction.”
Score one for Blue Streak.
Blue Streak is a somewhat unconventional action comedy. And no romance to distract it from the action or the comedy. Martin Lawrence plays Miles Logan, a jewel thief whose partner double-crosses him. Before getting arrested, Logan hides a jewel in a construction site, hoping to retrieve it when he gets out of prison.
Two years later, he’s released and discovers that construction site has turned into a police station. Through a series of circumstances, he ends up impersonating a cop (and rather well) and forms an “Odd Couple” like partnership with Luke Wilson’s newby detective, Carlson.
The movie’s formulaic but fun, elevated by Lawrence’s mugging. It is special because it subverts the romantic subplot twice. In an early scene, Logan visits the girlfriend he left behind when he went to prison. She rebuffs him. In most movies, he’d be trying to prove himself to her and eventually win her back. In Blue Streak, we never see her again.
There’s an attractive female public defender who monitors the cops not to treat her clients harshly. In most movies, she and the protagonist would be hooking up. Not here. She’s just a solid lawyer, not to be trifled with.
Logan doesn’t get the girl in the end, but he does get the jewel, and he’s built a solid (if temporary) friendship with Carlson, who eventually learns of his real identity, but points out “You’re in Mexico; not my jurisdiction.”
Score one for Blue Streak.
