Review of Bad Boys (1995) by Thequietgamer — 21 Jan 2020

Came out in the '90s, but feels like it's from the '80s. Pretty much your standard vulgar buddy cop movie, but with the twist that they have to pretend to be each other. The reason for this is cockamamie at best, but a few good laughs are mined from the concept.

The action is surprisingly sparse for a Michael Bay movie. A few shootouts are scattered throughout, but only two sequences really show off the bombastic explosions and extreme mayhem one would expect from Hollywood's king of making things go boom. Bad Boys is much more concerned with being a comedy so the majority of the running time consists of watching the two leads cuss each other out. Which isn't as amusing as Bay thinks it is. Much like me when I was 13, there are the occasional clever lines, but too often the verbal exchanges mistake gratuitous profanity for wit and miss the mark of hilarity by some margin.

What ultimately made me enjoy Bad Boys was that it felt like a throwback to the kind of cheaper, sleazier flicks the less respected or past their prime action stars would take on while waiting/hoping for their next shot at a blockbuster. There's also the stars to consider. I can't say their chemistry was anything special, but both are great in their roles. Smith is a natural at being the loose cannon and playboy of the duo, but it's Lawrence who steals the show as the family man that's constantly agitated because he hasn't been getting any at home. Bay's immature and over-excessive style finds a pretty nice home for itself in the grimy city of Miami. His typical fetishes fit right in with the whole big-budget homage to the retro B-movie vibe it's got going on. However, while a fine addition to the neighborhood, if he wants these "Boys" to be the toasts of the town he'll need to clean up their mouths. Dirty words alone are no longer enough to make me chuckle. They need to be used in a way that's clever.

7.