Jen & Mack (film) (Johnsonverse)

Jen & Mack is a 2004 animated hybrid telefilm directed by Craig Johnson and written by Tammy Jo Johnson, serving as an origin story in the Detective Jenny franchise. It stars Tara Strong, Alanna Ubach, Kiefer Sutherland, Neve Campbell, Bryn McAuley, Ricardo Montalban, Edward James Olmos, Raquel Welch, and Danny Trejo. This five-act film tells the story of how Jenny and Makayla first met and became friends, as well as their childhood, teenage years, and induction into Project Hercules in 1979.
== Plot ==
=== Act I (From Humble Beginnings...) ===
In June 1963, Denver Crime Family leader Clay Denver and his wife Anna are in a room at Misericordia Community Hospital with Dr. Christine Sharp, where Anna gives birth to a baby girl, whom they name Jennifer Gertrude Denver (after Anna's grandmother), and decide to groom her to one day lead the Denvers when the time comes. Three months later, in the General Hospital of Mexico, Camino Cartel leader and co-founder Ramon "Motormouth" Gómez and his wife Victoria are in a hospital room with their son Toni and Ramon's brother Alejandro waiting outside. Victoria gives birth to a girl, and she and Ramon agree to name her Makayla Ximena Gómez.
In November 1965, the heat has caught up with them after George Dean, one of the Denver crime family's most trusted members, turns out to be an informant for the Directorate of Security and Intelligence branch of the RCMP, and they're forced to relocate to El Paso, Texas and rebuild their organization. Jenny, meanwhile, doesn't get along with Bea initially.
Clay and Anna begin contacting the Camino Cartel for a potential partnership. Ramon agrees to hold a meeting at a Gómez Oil gas station (one of the Cartel's many legitimate fronts). A few days later, Clay and Ramon leave Jenny and Makayla at a daycare center, where they meet for the first time. Jenny and Makayla immediately become friends after bonding over their respective families' association with crime, and draw a picture of themselves on a sheet of paper as a gesture of friendship, ripping it so they keep the other's respective halves. Meanwhile, the Denvers and Camino Cartel strike a partnership during their meeting, agreeing to a 50-50 split in profits and territory, as well as both organizations providing each other protection.
=== Act II (Honor Amongst Friends) ===
By July 1968, both the Denver crime family and Camino Cartel are thriving, having seized a considerable amount of territory and making profits from their drug business, using their fronts to launder the money, and Clay and Anna have had another girl (named Bea, after Clay's grandmother). Jenny and Makayla, meanwhile, begin their first day at Eunice Morgan's kindergarten class. However, the other students refuse to talk to them after word-of-mouth spreads regarding their families' association with organized crime. Jenny and Makayla, now outcasts, resolve to only rely on each other for company.
Back at the Gómez mansion, Clay and Ramon chat on their respective organizations over martinis. Ramon notes that Clay is starting to get too ambitious, and reminds him that "the end of the line always comes when you're not careful". Upon arriving back at the Denver mansion, Clay takes out his driver's license, uses it to cut Cartel cocaine he took with him, and snorts the cocaine.
One day, Jenny and Makayla start reading books under a tree, when a group of bullies led by Johnny Kreiser threatens them. Jenny and Makayla manage to beat the bullies brutally, causing them to get a two-week suspension from school; said suspensions end up being overturned after Clay and Ramon (who are very proud of their daughters for standing up for themselves) subtly threaten Principal Woodbury's life.
By October 1973, the Denvers and Camino Cartel have captured even more territory, and several prominent politicians and authority figures are on their pocket. Clay, meanwhile, is struggling to overcome his addiction to the Cartel's cocaine, and after being caught having sex with three prostitutes in a brothel, is forced to see a therapist, Dr. Lorraine Grimes.
Jenny and Makayla, now in fifth grade, are taught by a personal tutor, Julius Schneider, having dropped out after Principal Woodbury was revealed to have been giving test answers to richer students (Jenny and Makayla included, though neither wanted them), and the new principal has started cracking down on crime in the school. After a tutoring session, the two hang out at a restaurant, Alessandro's Pizza, where they discuss plans to live a normal lifestyle when they're older. Suddenly, they see Bea being tricked into giving an older girl her doll. After Jenny and Makayla chase down and beat up the girl, Jenny gives Bea back her doll, and vows to be more protective of her going forward.
=== Act III (It Was Good While It Lasted...) ===
In the summer of 1976, as the Denvers and Cartel make a move to expand to the Midwest, Clay and Anna get a letter from the hospital confirming that Anna is pregnant with a baby boy. They plan on naming their child Anthony Carl "Tony" Denver, after Clay's deceased younger brother. In another therapy session with Dr. Grimes, Clay admits that he's becoming an increasingly worse husband and father.
At Alessandro's Pizza, after Jenny tells her that her mother is pregnant, Makayla tells Jenny that Ramon is sending her to an all-girls prep school in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, under the assumed name Stephanie Reyes with a Cartel member posing as her father, to avoid people making connections. The two promise to never forget each other as they walk out, sharing one final embrace.
Clay and Ramon take their respective families (aside from Makayla, who is in Pawtucket) to Michigan. There, the two organizations buy a fleet of ice cream trucks and start a front company, The Funny Man Ice Cream Co., to manufacture meth. A lonely Jenny tries watching an episode of Jabberjaw on television, but not only does she not laugh, she gets even more bored and turns off the television.
At Pawtucket, Makayla and her "father", Jimbo Reyes (a perverted Cartel-affiliated businessman who owns another front, Reyes Hardware, a weapons dealer), settle into their new home. Jimbo hands Makayla her school uniform, which she puts on for the first time, before they head off to the prep school, the Mildred Winston Academy. When Makayla enters the building for the first time and heads to her first class, she sadly introduces herself as Stephanie Reyes, claiming that she is "old money".
As the Denvers and the Cartel continue to profit from the drug trade, Anna gets into an argument with Clay about his vices, which devolves into an intense shouting match. Anna threatens to divorce Clay and take custody of Jenny, Bea and Tony, but Clay tries to emotionally manipulate Anna. When she still refuses to stay with him, Clay, in a fit of rage, tackles Anna to the ground with her pregnant stomach first. Realizing what he's just done, Clay tries to apologize, but Anna simply sobs as blood pours out from underneath her dress.
A few months later, a depressed Anna drowns herself in the Denver family's swimming pool, leaving a suicide note blaming Clay for her miscarriage, depression, and the uncertainty of their daughters' lives; a remorseful Clay cries softly. At the funeral, Jenny comforts a crying Bea, and Anna's older sister, Mary Craft, gives a eulogy where she blames Clay for her sister's suicide: "And as for you, Clayton, I hope you rot in hell for what you did to Annie". Clay immediately becomes a social pariah, and Jenny makes it clear that she has disowned her father, calling him by his first name.
During a therapy session, Dr. Grimes drops Clay as a patient after realizing that his actions led to Anna's miscarriage and suicide.
=== Act IV (Truth and Consequences) ===
In October 1979, during a meeting, Clay and Ramon decide to expand their partnership's operations to Florida to get in on its booming drug market. Clay, now paranoid that anyone could murder him, takes himself, Jenny, and Bea, as well as six other Denver men, on a flight to Orlando via his private jet to make sure they don't kill him. Suddenly, Clay, high from cocaine use, causes the plane to crash, leaving him and Jenny the sole survivors and forcing Ramon to delay his plans; Jenny walks up to Bea's body (which still holds her doll), paying her final respects to her sister. As the two head to the seedy Chief Motel in Hills Beach, Louisiana during a rainy night, Jenny, traumatized and outraged at her father, decides to exact revenge on him.
Makayla, meanwhile, takes out a book under a tree during lunch; it's revealed to be a scrapbook showing the memories the two had shared. She sadly takes out the half of her and Jenny's old drawing showing Jenny. The shot crossfades to the half Jenny holds while reading her scrapbook on a chair at the Chief Motel, showing Makayla. Jenny sees Clay calling Ramon, assuring him that the meeting will be held the next day. While Clay is sleeping, Jenny gets off her bed, takes the room key, and runs to a butcher shop called Pete's Meat Market across the street to steal a meat cleaver. When she gets back to the motel, she swings the cleaver at Clay's neck, beheading him. Hastily packing some food, clothes, and money, Jenny grabs a tape recorder, states that she's headed off to an undisclosed location and taking on a new identity, calls Clay "a disgusting excuse of a husband, a father, and a man", and flees before the police arrive.
Back in Mexico, Ramon is told by a Cartel messenger that Clay was found dead with his head missing, along with the audio cassette revealing that Jenny was responsible. Shocked and furious that Clay would be betrayed by his own daughter, Ramon hires several Cartel hitmen to assassinate Jenny, offering a hefty reward to whoever kills her. Meanwhile, at El Paso, the Denvers, left without a leader, begin to argue over who should take over and what direction the Denvers should take going forward, and over time, many members leave to form their own crime organizations; one of these members, Roberto Vincenetti, moves to New York City with his family, with big plans to dominate the mafia scene.
After a long school day, Makayla heads home. She sees that Jimbo has date raped three women (all in their late teens) and is trying to hit on her despite the fact that Makayla is 16 and Jimbo is 62. Makayla grabs a shovel and knocks him unconscious, burying him alive in his backyard. She puts food, clothes, and money in her school bag and flees.
While walking down the road in a disguise, trying to hitchhike to Pawtucket (and Makayla), Jenny is supposedly abducted by a pair of men in black. They turn out to be Joe Quill and Dennis Leonard, a pair of agents working for the United Nations. Jenny is brought before the Secretary-General, Michael Williamson, in New York City. Jenny believes she's about to be executed, but Michael instead thanks her, as several members of the Denver Crime Family have been arrested and willingly talked. He goes on to say that the global crime rate is skyrocketing, and the nations of the world are more concerned with the "soap opera going on between us and the communists" than they are about the good of society. Jenny is then briefed on the UN Detective program, and on Project Hercules (though true to form, the exact details of Project Hercules are left unknown). She agrees to undergo the process, which is not shown.
As Makayla takes a bus to El Paso (and Jenny) while wearing a disguise, a homeless man asks her if she wants to try some Cartel meth. She refuses and nearly stabs him with her pocket knife. This gets her kicked out of the bus at Waverly, Kentucky, forcing her to hitchhike. Suddenly, Makayla hears the sound of a car, and the screen cuts to black before she is taken by the UN.
=== Act V (The 747 Assignment) ===
After completing the process and undergoing training to acclimate her to her new abilities and strength, Jenny is told that another person around her age underwent the process, and will link up with her on her first assignment, which is to infiltrate the private 747 of the Camino Cartel, as someone within the organization has blown the whistle on its drug dealing. Jenny is reluctant, believing that she may have to kill Makayla, but goes through with it anyway.
Jenny sneaks aboard the 747 before it takes off from Mexico City International Airport, revealing herself once it reaches cruising altitude. Armed with a Beretta M1911, Jenny mows her way through numerous Cartel guards, only to be ambushed by Alejandro. Brutally beaten and on the ground, Alejandro raises his gun to fire, and a gunshot rings out. Jenny thinks she's been shot and feels herself to find where the bullet entered, but finds she's completely unharmed, and that there is now a massive hole in Alejandro's head. His body falls to the side to reveal Makayla, holding a gun. Helping Jenny to her feet, Makayla reveals that not only was she the whistleblower, she is the other Project Hercules participant. And to show that she's telling the truth, Makayla pulls out the half of the drawing from the day they first met, to which Jenny pulls out her half, and they connect it, before embracing.
Ramon, who wasn't on the plane, suddenly speaks over the intercom, revealing he knew Jenny was on the plane the whole time, but he was unaware Makayla had betrayed him. Still, he is reluctant to kill his daughter, and says that, if by some minute chance she survives what is about to happen, he hopes she'll forgive him. On that note, Ramon detonates a bomb on the plane, causing the tail section to break off and leaving Jenny hanging onto a seat from the explosive decompression. Makayla has also grabbed onto a seat and slowly makes her way up to Jenny before grabbing onto her. She tells Jenny to let go, but Jenny, still traumatized from the plane crash that killed her mother and sister, is too scared. Makayla despondently asks Jenny to trust her, and reveals that she was issued a fusion-powered jetpack by the UN. As the plane gets closer to the ground, Jenny finally relents, and lets go of the seats. The two spend a minute in freefall before Makayla deploys the wings on her jetpack. Her arms still tightly wrapped around Jenny, they fly away from the plane as it crashes into the ground in a spectacular fireball, killing the pilots.
Landing in a clearing, they are initially exhilarated to have made it out, until it suddenly hits them both that this is their life now, that of the UN's "attack dogs", and that they'll have to eventually watch as the entire world changes, withers away, and dies, while they will always be biologically 16 years old. They decide that, if they suffer, they'll suffer together; they stay in the same spot in a very long hug, during which time the sun sets. When they notice how much time has passed, they decide to fly back to New York, stopping at a Howard Johnson's for dinner (and trying to ignore everyone staring at them flying in, thinking that they're judging them; in truth, everyone looking is actually in awe, as if they were superheroes who had just leaped out of a comic book).
Upon hearing that Jenny and Makayla have escaped, Ramon expresses a mix of relief and surprise: relief that Makayla survived, and surprise that the UN had such technology. He tells Toni that he is the provisional heir to the Camino Cartel until he can (hopefully) get Makayla to come around, and says that the Cartel will have to operate underground going forward, now that the UN is on to them. Ramon also laments the death of Clay, as not only does it represent a massive loss in profit, but Clay was also a good friend.
Back at the UN, Jenny and Makayla appear before Michael, who assures them that they succeeded in their objective, as Makayla brought a ton of evidence against the Cartel. He tells them that the entire Gómez family's bank assets have been frozen, except for Makayla, who will be the only one with access to them. In a ceremony, the two are named as official UN Detectives by Michael and Under-Secretary-General Janet Wallis, and given the official designation "Delta Squad". But they quickly adopt a more informal name: Team Jenny. With their vast funds, they purchase an old manor in Hills Beach, and construct a high-tech headquarters underneath.
=== Epilogue ===
The film then cuts to the present day (2004), revealing the entire movie was Jenny and Makayla, sitting in the living room at Bergman Manor, reflecting on how they met, and how they got where they are today. While reminiscing on the past, they also note that it's no longer just the two of them, the film cutting to show Terry maintaining one of her guns, Kristen working on the Neptune's Trident, Louise having her dogs maul a captured Black Scorpion agent, Ronnie playing solitaire on her laptop, and Malia, Ojasvi, Emily, and Sandra at a McDonald's in town. They once again pull out the two halves of the drawing they made when they first met, and reaffirm that, come hell or high water, they will stay together, forever...
== Voice cast ==
* Tara Strong as Jenny G. Denver at ages thirteen and sixteen (pre-2017 releases, post-2017 releases in epilogue), Johnny Kreiser, and a news reporter
** Lola Johnson as Jenny as an infant
**Carly Johnson as Jenny at age two
**Jodelle Ferland as Jenny at age five
**Emily Tennant as Jenny at age ten
*Mary Kay Bergman (via VoxMutatio) as Jenny G. Denver at ages thirteen and sixteen (2017 release)
* Alanna Ubach as Makayla Gómez at ages twelve and sixteen
** Lola Johnson as Makayla as an infant
**Rachel Rivera as Makayla at age two
**Natalia Juárez as Makayla at age four
**Selena Gomez as Makayla at age ten
*Kiefer Sutherland as Clay Denver
*Neve Campbell as Anna Denver
*Bryn McAuley as Bea Denver at ages eleven and fourteen
**Wendy Johnson as Bea as an infant
**Aislinn Paul as Bea at ages three and eight
*Ricardo Montalban as Ramon "Motormouth" Gómez
*Edward James Olmos as Alejandro Gómez
*Raquel Welch as Victoria Gómez
*Danny Trejo as Toni Gómez at ages eighteen and twenty-one
**David Castro as Toni at age seven
**Hunter Gomez as Toni at age ten
**Efren Ramirez as Toni at age fifteen
*Robert Loggia as Roberto "Chunky Bob" Vincenetti
*Jerry Orbach as Michael Williamson
*Tress MacNeille as Janet Wallis and Ramon's maid
*Shane Rimmer as Joe Quill
*Ben Stein as Dennis Leonard
*Cristina Pucelli as Dr. Lorraine Grimes
*Jessica DiCicco as Eunice Morgan
*Rachael MacFarlane as Wendy Woodbury
*Dana Snyder as Julius Schneider
*Alyson Court as Dr. Christine Sharp
*Héctor Elizondo as Jimbo Reyes
*Brian Drummond as George Dean
*Tabitha St. Germain as Mary Craft
*Lauren Tom as Older Girl
*Rino Romano as a homeless man
*Ogie Banks as a bus driver
*Carlos Alazraqui, Dino Andrade, Jeff Bennett, Tom Kenny, and Efren Ramirez as Cartel members
*Dee Bradley Baker, Peter Cullen, Keith Ferguson, Phil LaMarr, Seth MacFarlane, and James Arnold Taylor as Denver goons
*Wendy Hoopes, Sean Marquette, Kristen Schaal, Kath Soucie, and Lauren Tom as students
*Dee Bradley Baker, Michael Bell, Jeff Bennett, Grey DeLisle, Ben Diskin, Melissa Fahn, Jennifer Hale, Tom Kane, Janice Kawaye, Tom Kenny, Kevin Michael Richardson, Neil Ross, Cree Summer, Hynden Walch, and Frank Welker as civilians
*Frank Welker as Jabberjaw (archive audio)
== Production ==
=== Development ===
=== Casting ===
Due to being an origin story, several characters had younger voices cast, these being Jenny, Makayla, Bea, and Toni, with Tara Strong, Alanna Ubach, and Danny Trejo reprising their roles when their characters reach their present ages. In addition, Ricardo Montalban, Edward James Olmos, Raquel Welch, Robbert Loggia, Jerry Orbach, Tress MacNeille, Shane Rimmer, and Ben Stein reprise their respective roles from the series.
Original cast members Hynden Walch, Cree Summer, and Melissa Fahn make cameos as civilians and Kristen Schaal makes a cameo as a student, with their respective normal characters (Terry, Kristen, Ronnie, and Louise) appearing in non-speaking roles in the ending. Malia's voice actress, Jessica DiCicco, also appears as Eunice Morgan, with Malia herself appearing in a silent cameo in the ending as well.
=== Animation ===
== Release ==
== Reception ==
=== Critical response ===
=== Ratings ===
== Home media ==
In March 2005, the film was released on DVD and VHS. It was re-released again in 2008. In 2017, the film was re-released on DVD, Blu-Ray, and UltraStorage Disc, with Tara Strong's performance as Jenny almost completely replaced with the voice of Mary Kay Bergman, recreated using VoxMutatio. This was done to avoid any continuity hiccups with the three-episode arc in Season 5 where Jenny loses her voice, being done to transition from Bergman to Strong. Strong's performances as Johnny Kreiser, a news reporter, and Jenny in the epilogue (which is set in 2004) were retained, and her Jenny performance throughout the film remains as an audio option, though Tammy Jo Johnson considers the version with Bergman as Jenny to be the canon version.
== Stage play ==
In 2010, a stage play based on the film was announced. The play premiered in 2011 at the San Jose Center for the Performing Arts, before transferring to Broadway in 2012. The Original Broadway Cast included Mary Evans as Jenny, Isabella Marquez as Makayla, Phil Hartman as Clay, George Lopez as Ramon, Rita Moreno as Victoria, and René Auberjonois as Michael. The play was a critical and commercial hit, and swept every Play category at the 67th Tony Awards.