BULLETPROOF
A film review by Chad Polenz
Copyright 1997 Chad Polenz
** (out of 4 = fair) 1996, R, 85 minutes [1 hour, 25 minutes] [action/comedy] starring: Damon Wayans (Rock Keats/Jack Carter), Adam Sandler (Archie Moses), Kristen Wilson (Traci), James Caan (Frank Colton), written by Joe Gayton, Lewis Colick, produced by Robert Simonds, directed by Ernest Dickerson.
I'm trying to decide which has more influence over me: a really good laugh or a really bad story. I can't decide if I'd recommend "Bulletproof" for its funny comedy or not recommend it for its mindless, action-driven story. Ah, the old "cop-buddy-action-flick-with-a-humorous-undertone," we've seen these before, and only a few of them actually work. What I don't understand is how nobody can figure out that those were the exceptions, not the rules.
The story revolves around a pair of car thieves who have become the best of friends over the course of a year (so we are told). One of them is actually an undercover cop (Wayans as Rock Keats) and the other is an idiot hood (Sandler as Archie Moses) who somehow has connections to a major drug lord (Caan as Frank Colton).
Right away we are inundated with cop movie cliches: lots of jargon and rhetoric about a major dope deal going down (of course in a warehouse on the docks with punks, machine guns, etc.). Of course, when the criminals become suspicious of the Keats they find out he is actually a cop and of course Archie feels betrayed and of course the cops bust in and a bloodbath ensues.
Now our two main characters are at war with each other when five minutes before they were best of friends. During the scene Archie accidentally shoots Keats in the head, but it doesn't kill him (nah, gunshot wounds to the head never kill anyone!). To make a long story short, Keats (whose real name is Jack Carter) recovers, meets a cute woman, and is assigned to protect Archie because he can turn states evidence against Colton, the most powerful drug lord who also wants to kill him.
Sandler and Wayans make a pretty funny duo, I'll have to admit it, but why put the two in a genre that doesn't fit them? Both of these actors have starred in comedies up until this point, what are they doing shooting guns and jumping from airplanes? The action scenes and the stunts in this movie are just so cliche and recycled, even James Caan can't make for a remotely convincing villain, and thus all we get is a big cartoon (although cartoons can be funny).
There are more double crosses in this movie than I've ever seen. Naming any of them would give away the entire story. By the end we get a lot of bloodshed over nothing. There's not much here to make us really care about what's going on.
For what it's worth, the funny parts of "Bulletproof" are really funny, but the bad story and mindless violence is a real turn-off. The entire film has a choppy surface to it, there's no depth to it at all. Mixing comedy with action is a difficult process, why does Hollywood continually try it?
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