Michael Bay's Bad Boys, his first feature film, is probably his best. But that sure isn't saying much. He has always favored the route of bloated and stupid rather than coherent and intelligent, and he is anything but subtle in his first feature attempt as a director. Consistent readers of my work know I have an incredible disdain for the director/writer himself, but I in no way believe he is a bad, horrible person. I'm just saying he writes, more often than not, bad, horrible films. I have no doubt in my mind that he is capable of writing and directing a good film, but he gets too involved with things that should be the secondary elements in a film. He brings background elements firmly into the foreground, and that poses a big problem.
The story centers around Marcus Burnett (Lawrence) and Mike Lowrey (Smith), two detectives for the Miami-Dade Police Department, who are called in to hunt down a $100 million worth of heroin that was intricately stolen from a secure vault. One of the petty criminals is Fouchet (Karyo), who early in the film shoots one of two escorts in his mansion. The other one named Julie (Leoni) will only speak to Lowrey on the count of her friends' relationship with the man.
When Julie calls in about the murder, Lowrey is away, and the Captain forces Burnett to pose as Lowrey so as not to lose a valuable witness. He accepts, and off on a tangent we go through what is soon to be the long, eventful odyssey of mistaken identity. While Burnett puts Julie under protective custody, both the men work in seclusion to try and capture the drug lords and get their stash back.
While not wonderfully executed, I can at least say that Bad Boys is fun and provides lightweight entertainment for those seeking it. It isn't the finest example of goofy, popcorn entertainment that I have encountered, but I can recognize the film has an audience that will be satisfied with the turnout, much like those horrifically awful Transformers films Bay so contently puts out. Just because I can respect that there is a fanbase for his material, doesn't mean I am forced to sit back and like it, and that's why I choose to voice my opinion on a lot of his films.
Lawrence and Smith do a great job working together, both having expressive personalities and cheery, electric chemistry that provides kinetic energy to the screenplay. Although it appears as if their roles were switched. I have a hard time believing that Lawrence's Burnett is the mostly straight-laced cop with a family, and Smith's Lowrey is the fearless player with an act for taking advantage of women by having a different one every night. During the course of the film, I couldn't help but feel it should be the other way around. If that's a bit too vague to try and grasp, let me try and put it this way; has Will Smith ever been given a lesser role in any of his recent filmography? I too discovered that the original title for Bad Boys was going to be "Bulletproof Hearts" with SNL buds Dana Carvey and Jon Lovitz taking the roles of Lawrence and Smith. While I would've adored a buddy-cop comedy with Carvey and Lovitz as the leads, I couldn't quite grasp the idea of two cleaned-up guys like them playing dirty cops. For better or for worse, the roles were given to the right people.
While the film provides light escapism, Bad Boys, however, makes one near-crucial mistake; it is too heavy-handed and over-produced to classify as campiness, which is what it is seemingly trying to achieve. It's a tad too long, shot like a music video (what else do you expect from Bay, who started out in that field?), and is viable because of its leads who have a charming chemistry and their commitment to a project so quirky and arbitrary. But, really, when you're working on a glossy piece of Hollywood, brought to you by someone whose talent is in the visual effects field and not much else, and are sometimes trudging through muddy clichés, whatcha gonna do? Starring: Martin Lawrence, Will Smith, Téa Leoni, and Tchéky Karyo. Directed by: Michael Bay.
The story centers around Marcus Burnett (Lawrence) and Mike Lowrey (Smith), two detectives for the Miami-Dade Police Department, who are called in to hunt down a $100 million worth of heroin that was intricately stolen from a secure vault. One of the petty criminals is Fouchet (Karyo), who early in the film shoots one of two escorts in his mansion. The other one named Julie (Leoni) will only speak to Lowrey on the count of her friends' relationship with the man.
When Julie calls in about the murder, Lowrey is away, and the Captain forces Burnett to pose as Lowrey so as not to lose a valuable witness. He accepts, and off on a tangent we go through what is soon to be the long, eventful odyssey of mistaken identity. While Burnett puts Julie under protective custody, both the men work in seclusion to try and capture the drug lords and get their stash back.
While not wonderfully executed, I can at least say that Bad Boys is fun and provides lightweight entertainment for those seeking it. It isn't the finest example of goofy, popcorn entertainment that I have encountered, but I can recognize the film has an audience that will be satisfied with the turnout, much like those horrifically awful Transformers films Bay so contently puts out. Just because I can respect that there is a fanbase for his material, doesn't mean I am forced to sit back and like it, and that's why I choose to voice my opinion on a lot of his films.
Lawrence and Smith do a great job working together, both having expressive personalities and cheery, electric chemistry that provides kinetic energy to the screenplay. Although it appears as if their roles were switched. I have a hard time believing that Lawrence's Burnett is the mostly straight-laced cop with a family, and Smith's Lowrey is the fearless player with an act for taking advantage of women by having a different one every night. During the course of the film, I couldn't help but feel it should be the other way around. If that's a bit too vague to try and grasp, let me try and put it this way; has Will Smith ever been given a lesser role in any of his recent filmography? I too discovered that the original title for Bad Boys was going to be "Bulletproof Hearts" with SNL buds Dana Carvey and Jon Lovitz taking the roles of Lawrence and Smith. While I would've adored a buddy-cop comedy with Carvey and Lovitz as the leads, I couldn't quite grasp the idea of two cleaned-up guys like them playing dirty cops. For better or for worse, the roles were given to the right people.
While the film provides light escapism, Bad Boys, however, makes one near-crucial mistake; it is too heavy-handed and over-produced to classify as campiness, which is what it is seemingly trying to achieve. It's a tad too long, shot like a music video (what else do you expect from Bay, who started out in that field?), and is viable because of its leads who have a charming chemistry and their commitment to a project so quirky and arbitrary. But, really, when you're working on a glossy piece of Hollywood, brought to you by someone whose talent is in the visual effects field and not much else, and are sometimes trudging through muddy clichés, whatcha gonna do? Starring: Martin Lawrence, Will Smith, Téa Leoni, and Tchéky Karyo. Directed by: Michael Bay.