buddy cop

Noun

buddy cop (plural buddy cops)

1. (attributive) 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.
   • Buddy cop movies were raised to an art form in the eighties.2006, Howard Hughes, “Criminal Record: An Introduction to Crime Movies”, in Crime Wave: The Filmgoers’ Guide to the Great Crime Movies, London; New York, N.Y.: I.B. Tauris, →ISBN, page xxi
   • Thus buddy-cop films exemplified a finding of common ground between reckless, suicidal cops and responsible family cops (Lethal Weapon), between fast-talking convicts and tough, world-weary detectives (48 Hours), between strict Russian police officers and boorish Chicago cops (Red Heat).2015, Jeffrey A. Brown, Beyond Bombshells: The New Action Heroine in Popular Culture, University Press of Mississippi, →ISBN
   1. (attributive) One of the two characters.
      • With a long pedigree of heroic duos that can be traced back to Holmes and Watson, the original buddy cops, this genre of films tends to be more focused on inter-character chemistry than it is on big explosions or drawn-out fistfights.2012, Katrina Hill, Action Movie Freak, Penguin, →ISBN