BAD BOYS
A film review by Scott Renshaw
Copyright 1995 Scott Renshaw
Starring: Martin Lawrence, Will Smith, Tea Leoni, Joe Pantoliano, Tcheky Karyo. Screenplay: Michael Barrie & Jim Mulholland and Doug Richardson. Director: Michael Bay.
Gnaw on this factoid for a moment: BAD BOYS was originally a project with Dana Carvey slated to play one of the leads. That is not a misprint. Dana Carvey. And if you think about it long enough, you will realize why BAD BOYS never had a prayer of being anything more than mediocre, and in fact turned out quite bad. It is the classic case of a shell plot intended to do nothing more than showcase the star's familiar comic routine. BAD BOYS is an amazingly boring action film, and will be funny only to fans of Martin Lawrence and/or Will Smith.
Lawrence and Smith play Marcus Burnett and Mike Lowry, two Miami narcotics officers with very different personalities. Marcus is a home body with a wife (Theresa Randle) and three kids; Mike is a player with a steady stream of lady friends. They do share a problem, however...a fortune in heroin from one of their busts which has been stolen from the police station by mastermind Fouchet (Tcheky Karyo). The case becomes complicated when a witness (Tea Leoni) to a pair of murders committed by Fouchet and his goons calls for help, setting in motion a sequence of events in which Marcus is forced to pretend he is Mike. Meanwhile, both Mike and Marcus try to track down Fouchet before he re-sells the heroin to mobsters.
I'll tell you exactly what kind of movie BAD BOYS is. It is the kind of movie where anything that *can* blow up, *will* blow up. It is the kind of movie where glass exists solely to be shattered, either by bullets or by bodies; in one hilariously idiotic example, a glass aquarium is mounted in the wall of a nightclub, allowing a convenient view of the inside of the men's room as well as providing a ready-made breakable item. It is the kind of movie where a misinterpreted phone conversation turns into an episode of "Three's Company." And it is the kind of movie where a guy in a wheelchair gets knocked over by the villain just so you know that he's *really* a villain (he probably doesn't recycle, either). In short, it is a collection of every conceivable action film cliche, right down to the high-strung police captain (an incessantly screaming Joe Pantoliano).
Don't expect much better from the characters. Martin Lawrence has the role with the most potential, the family man playing the part of the sexy bachelor, but he completely butchers it. The part requires someone capable of a little restraint, someone who appears uncomfortable acting smooth and seductive. That someone is *not* Lawrence, who is full of swagger and attitude. Falling back on his popular stand-up and sit-com persona might prove popular with his die-hard fans, but others will wonder exactly how he is supposed to be different from Mike. Marcus is a part that actually requires some acting ability, and Martin Lawrence doesn't have much. Will Smith *does* have acting ability, and plenty of it, but he really takes a back seat to Lawrence. When he is allowed to show his frustration with the mess Lawrence is making, of his house and his image, Smith is quite good, and there is actually some energy in BAD BOYS. Those occasions, however, are all too rare.
The simple truth is that, basically, BAD BOYS is trying to showcase Lawrence and Smith the way BEVERLY HILLS COP showcased Eddie Murphy, and a coherent plot would just get in the way of the jokes. There are clearly a lot of people who think Martin Lawrence is funny, but I am not one of them. It is just depressing watching him bug his eyes at the suggestion that he is gay, or fumbling for an explanation when his wife catches him in a lie (which, incidentally, exists only as a lame plot device). While Will Smith can be quite funny, he becomes something of a straight man to Lawrence, and that is a real misuse of his talents. BAD BOYS is a generic action flick full of pointless slow-motion shots by director Michael Bay and heavy use of orange filters by cinematographer Howard Atherton, sporadically interrupted by Lawrence and Smith's profane version of the traditional buddy film odd couple. BAD BOYS, even worse movie.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 bad boys: 2.
-- Scott Renshaw Stanford University Office of the General Counsel
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