- Title: Bad Boys
- IMDb: link
1995 answered the question of whether or not two black television stars could launch a successful franchise built largely on action sequences and recycled themes and plots from the genre. The film was a commercial success earning back more than three times its budget domestically and quite a bit more overseas and spawned three sequels over the next three decades. Whether or not these two can eventually make a good movie together is still a question that nearly 30 years later has yet to be answered.
In a typical odd-couple pairing, Will Smith and Martin Lawrence star as Los Angeles police officers known more for the chaos they leave in the street than the number of cases they close. How these two manage to keep their badges is the film’s greatest mystery. Smith gets to be the rich and suave Mike Lowery with Lawrence cast as the combative, and nearly always complaining, comic relief Marcus Burnett. The two constantly bicker, mostly because the script needs them to.
The plot of the first film, much of which was improvised given director Michael Bay‘s dislike of the script, involves the department working to cover $100 million in drugs stolen from police lockup while also keeping a key witness (Téa Leoni) safe. The result is a quite formulaic film filled with lots of car chases and explosions with several comedic moments squeezed in (some of which work better than others).
In one hell of a convoluted plot point, Martin is forced to pretend to be Mike to earn the witness’ trust over nearly the entire film (despite multiple opportunities to resolve the situation). Leoni isn’t bad here, but the script already meets its quota in an annoying and stupid character in Lawrence’s Marcus and her decisions to demand police protection and then keep putting herself in danger do nothing but provide opportunities for more action scenes. If you ignore large aspects of the plot, it works fine as a B-movie action flick although the sequels would ramp up things significantly in terms of stunts and explosions.
Watch the trailer
