Bad Boys

Dir Michael Bay

Written by George Gallo, Michael Barrie, Jim Mulholland, Doug Richardson

Martin Lawrence, Will Smith, Téa Leoni, Joe Pantoliano, Tchèky Karyo, Theresa Randle, Marg Helgenberger, Nestor Serrano, Julio Mechoso, Michael Imperioli, Saverio Guerra.

Two Miami narcotics cops; the married with children Marcus (Lawrence) and the trust fund bachelor Mike (Smith) discover that the $180m of heroin that they had seized has been stolen. They must track down who stole it, before IA shuts them down. It just so happens the bad guy Fouchet (Karyo) has also just murdered the pal of Mike too.

Loud, fast and a bit silly at times, the directorial debut of Bay doesn’t have the nostalgic feel to it watching almost (thirty?) years after its release. There are way too many moments that are just painful to watch, and while this is probably a directorial choice with the screenplay – it also might my own personal feelings about the leads.

The character of Marcus is probably the biggest faux pas, with painful to watch dialogue between his wife and himself. Nothing about this was written organically. I actually got frustrated by the how badly these parts in the film were.

The action is pretty fun still, but there are a few goofs that are hard to overlook in places, and the camera work is a bit erratic at times which is a bit of a let-down.

The score by Mark Mancina still holds up, and complements the action scenes nicely. I actually enjoyed the score the most this time around watching.

By no means is this a bad film, it just doesn’t have the same feel to it as it used to in my heart. It’s also a little funny to see in the opening credits Lawrence billed before Smith, as he was the bigger star at the time.

3/5