Ageing cops Martin Lawrence and Will Smith (L) provide a laugh riot and action.
Film: Bad Boys: Ride or Die
Director: Adil El Arbi, Bilall Fallah
Cast: Will Smith, Martin Lawrence, Vanessa Hudgens, Alexander Ludwig, Paola Nunez, Eric Dane, Ioan Gruffudd, Jacob Scipio, Melanie Liburd, Tasha Smith, Rhea Seehorn, Tiffany Haddish, Joe Pantoliano, DJ Khaled, John Salley
Johnson Thomas
This is the fourth movie in the series and there’s no let-up here. The ageing buddy-cop duo get into the act and it’s a joyride all the way. They still talk motor-mouthed meaningless stuff, the f-words and nether region jokes keep coming, and the action is unique. The writing may be fluff stuff, yet it manages to maintain a balance with the convoluted drama, the incessant bickering and the spaced-out gags.
The plot isn’t particularly enticing and the narrative gets quite choppy leading up to the big reveal. But once that happens, the wheels begin to spin fast and furious. This film is typical of a big, fat Michael Bay production.
Full of energy, some side-splitting laughter and interesting action, ‘Bad Boys’ has a fair run of excitement! Martin Lawrence as Marcus Burnett has much more to do than in the previous edition — he is quite good in the shootout scene in the food store. Of course, Martin has a lot more to do with food even after he suffers a heart attack and comes back from almost-dead.
Will Smith as Mike Lowrey gets married, gets to reunite with his estranged, incarcerated son and even gets to escort him to a remote spot as instructed by the drug lords. In this film, Mike is plagued by panic attacks and the nature of the job takes its toll on Marcus. These small character elements add a little more interest to the telling.
The screenplay by Chris Bremner and Will Beall has the Miami PD detectives investigating a possible mole in the police department responsible for framing their murdered captain, Conrad Howard (Joe Pantoliano). We get to see a little more of their work team, consisting of Rita (Paola Nunez), Kelly (Vanessa Hudgens) and Dorn (Alexander Ludwig).
Burnett’s family and Mike’s new wife Christine (Melanie Liburd) get some runtime. The two lead characters play off each other well enough to keep us entertained. Their chemistry is quite charged up. The funny moments are gained from their delivery of lines, and not really from the writing itself.
We may not have been treated to the entire song, but bits and pieces of the ‘Bad Boys’ song lend nostalgic value and the addition of ‘Tonight’ adds impact. Action is quite badass, with some great choreography, fancy cinematography and editing making it all seem in-your-face and fantastic. Dizzying camerawork from cinematographer Robrecht Heyvaert makes sure the silly tone stays silly and irreverent.
Burnett’s out-of-body death experience obviously was meant to fill up the gaps, but it feels rather out of place in happening, stream-of-plot points that connected with all the past ‘Bad Boys’ films. The final showdown has great action with unique POV moments to heighten the audience involvement. Alexander Ludwig, Rhea Seehorn, Eric Dane and Ioan Gruffudd lend interesting moments to the franchise experience. The highlight though is a Michael Bay cameo in a typically extravagant production that is epic in scale, funny and loaded with thrilling action!
