Release Date: April 7, 1995
Starring: Martin Lawrence, Will Smith, Téa Leoni, Tchéky Karyo, Joe Pantoliano
Directed by: Michael Bay
Written by: Michael Barrie, Jim Mulholland, Doug Richardson
Distributed by: Sony Pictures Entertainment
MPAA Rating: R (intense violent action, pervasive strong language)
If you have the advantage, as I do in this review, of watching Bad Boys in light of the rest of director Michael Bay’s career, you will immediately recognize how much potential this former music video helmer once had. Compared to the rest of Bay’s movies, the latest of which have become bloated, overlong explosions, Bad Boys clocks in at a relatively breezy 125 minutes, and there are several action movie set pieces besides the kitchen sink that are nowhere to be found.
It also features the contagious and slightly unconventional pairing of Will Smith and Martin Lawrence as the movie’s heroes, a pair of Miami narcotics officers named Mike Lowrey and Marcus Burnett. Smith, who made it big as a funnyman on the long-running television sitcom “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” is cast here as the straight man in stark contrast to Lawrence’s neurotic loudmouth, who only gets funnier as he gets louder. Moreover, Bay’s decision to have the tall, muscled Smith spend most of the movie wearing either a tank top or no shirt at all (including the famous scene in which he chases after some villains, bare-chested, in slow motion) may have been indirectly responsible for turning the good-natured goofball into a late 90’s sex symbol.
The plot has Mike and Marcus teaming up to catch a criminal mastermind named Fouchet (Tchéky Karyo) who has stolen $100 million worth of heroin from the evidence locker at the Miami police department. Things get personal when Mike’s girlfriend is killed by one of Fouchet’s crew, but the murder also provides a lucky break for the duo -- a witness named Julie Mott (Téa Leoni). Mike and Marcus take her into protective custody, using the few bits of information she can provide to track Fouchet down before he sells the heroin and disappears forever.
The script, written by Michael Barrie, Jim Mulholland, and Doug Richardson, is thin -- apparently some things never change, even in Michael Bay movies -- and it’s loaded with tired, buddy-cop movie clichés. There’s the shouting, implacable narcotics chief, played by Joe Pantoliano, whom many viewers will now recognize from TV’s “The Sopranos,” or perhaps the indie hit Memento. There’s the tension between Mike and Marcus and a pair of rival narcotics officers. And there’s the requisite internal affairs detective, played by Marg Helgenberger, who thinks that the heroin heist in the movie’s opening scene was an inside job (this plot thread escalates out of control when she attempts to have Mike and Marcus reassigned on the verge of a major bust).
Characters also visit places, like a sweaty, dusty gym somewhere in Miami, and do things, like use a delivery truck loaded with highly flammable ether as a getaway vehicle, that only turn up in Hollywood action movies. It has become clear by now that Bay has an affinity for melodrama, and in some respects it’s interesting to see it here in its infancy.
In fact, many of Bay’s trademarks are here. The story makes frequent references to the destructive power of the canned ether, which, much like the VX nerve gas that Bay used in his 1996 thriller The Rock, is his destructive weapon of choice for Bad Boys. The humorless, textbook assault on police headquarters, resulting in the heist of over $100 million worth of heroin, that Fouchet’s crew pulls off in the opening scene is later replicated, with greater dexterity, in the opening of The Rock as well. Bay can’t resist filming a fleet of squad cars and police helicopters chasing after the bad guys. And, of course, several scenes go on far too long, as in one, for example, when Mike and Marcus discover a dead body inside a mansion in the Florida Keys, only to have Mike incessantly tease Marcus about his squeamishness.
Fortunately, the two leads have a contagious, carefree style that goes a long way toward making the movie enjoyable. The actors are constantly playing off one another, and emphasizing the difference between their characters -- Mike is a bachelor, loose and relaxed, while Marcus is married and complains of sexual tension and the constraints of family life. Mike drives an expensive, flashy sports car (without cupholders, Marcus notes), while Marcus is stuck piloting the family station wagon (with a baby seat in the back, Mike notes).
Pantoliano is also worth watching as the chief. As tired as his role may be, he makes it seem fresh with his uniquely nasal timbre and compact ferociousness. Leoni is less convincing as the damsel in distress -- she does breathy and brainless well, but only for about 10 minutes. Her character is too substantial, as is a subplot in the middle where Marcus has to pretend to be Mike in order to convince Leoni’s character to come into protective custody.
The cast, much like the chosen setting of Miami, is multiracial, and there are plenty of jokes and stereotypes thrown back and forth -- if only to keep things lively. Pantoliano’s chief, a white guy, is an awful basketball player, and the Hispanic detectives in the film wear wild, Hawaiian-style shirts.
Overall, Bad Boys isn’t the most original, or even the most entertaining, buddy cop movie, but it does have enough moments to make it a worthwhile watch. It’s probably more interesting, however, as Michael Bay’s first movie, because although he would top himself with his next feature, 1996’s The Rock, it would be mostly downhill from there. It’s best seen with an appreciation that there was once a Bay who wasn’t consumed with his own clout in Hollywood, and still conformed to the limits of easily digestible action-movie filmmaking.
-- Craig Roush (crr225@nyu.edu)