In Bad Boys, Detective Sergeant Marcus Burnett and Detective Sergeant Mike Lowrey are two Miami cops working the narcotics department. Marcus is married with three children, Mike is single, and together they share a tight friendship more akin to brotherly love.
One morning, Marcus and Mike are called into work as a matter of urgency. During the night, a gang of unknown operatives made their way into police headquarters, broke into a secure vault, and stole $100 million of heroin.
The heroin was an important piece of evidence in a case that Marcus and Mike were working on. Without it, their case will instantly fall apart.
However, Marcus and Mike have a bigger problem on their hands. Internal Affairs are concerned the drug theft could be an inside job, and want answers quickly.
Marcus and Mike are given 72 hours to track down and recover the drugs before the FBI and the DEA show up. But as they soon discover, there’s more going on than a drug heist.
Directed by Michael Bay, Bad Boys stars Will Smith, Martin Lawrence, Joe Pantoliano, and Téa Leoni. The movie is an action comedy, which slots into the buddy cop sub-genre, and is the first entry in the Bad Boys movie series.
Built around one key element – chemistry – Bad Boys is a fun romp, filled with energetic performances, witty lines, and plenty of action. The movie doesn’t necessarily add anything new or different to the action genre, and it certainly didn’t when it was released during the blockbuster-heavy 1990s, but it sure is likeable.
What Bad Boys lacks in originality, it makes up for in spunk. The film is brash and ballsy, with an excellent soundtrack, and it is instantly watchable.
As noted above, the film is essentially constructed around chemistry – i.e. the chemistry between its lead characters. This is Bad Boy’s secret sauce, and it keeps things fresh and spicy.
Martin Lawrence and Will Smith lead the film as Marcus and Mike respectively, and their pairing is inspired. They slot together effortlessly, and a great deal of the fun comes from watching them bounce off each other.
Lawrence and Smith act like brothers and this comes across on screen. Both are smart-talking cops, who have been around the block and back again, and they instantly become trustworthy characters who steal every scene.
What’s perhaps most surprising with this first entry in the Bad Boy movie series is just how great Lawrence is and how much he gets to do. Lawrence has more screen time than Smith, largely because Smith wasn’t a mega-star when Bad Boys was originally released, and it pays off.
Because the Lawrence/Smith pairing is as strong as it is, Bad Boys is forgiven for its biggest misstep, which is its fairly weak script. Sure, it is serviceable, but it is paper-thin at best and easily the weak link in the whole production.
Because the script isn’t quite up to scratch, the film does its best to get as much mileage out of its lead actors as it can. As such, it arguably relies on Lawrence and Smith a bit too much, when it should have undergone a few tweaks to strengthen the offering.
Bad Boys is also about 30 minutes too long and once again this is most likely because of the interplay between Lawrence and Smith. I’d wager director Michael Bay saw what the actors were bringing during filming and he just let them riff away.
Instead of editing some of the material out of the picture he opted to keep it in, and the film runs longer than it needs to. Not a huge issue, but a little bit of editing wouldn’t hurt to make this a leaner and meaner offering.
Despite an underwhelming script, Bad Boys is enjoyable stuff. It knows exactly what type of film it is, leans into it, and delivers slick scenes and strong performances.
It never reaches amazing heights, but it never really needs to. Michael Bay delivers spectacle without throwing the kitchen sink at the screen and it hits the right sweet spot.
As an action film, Bad Boys proves some films can be perfectly acceptable for what they present, rather than what they don’t. If you enjoy a buddy cop movie, there’s no real reason not to like this one.
Should you wish to take a look, Bad Boys is currently available on DVD, Blu-ray, and digital.
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