What happens when a thief steals a room full of heroin, kills a callgirl and accidentally let’s another go that can identify him, so he goes after her as well? You call in two cops to find the girl, take down the bad guy and put the drugs behind bars again.
Action! Action! Action! Michael Bay how did you put together such a coherent storyline and keep it intact? Not sure, but Bad Boys is a combination of intense action, great chase scenes, and perfect chemistry between Will Smith and Martin Lawrence. It’s like the comical Miami Vice, but still with great action included.
The pair of protagonist in the film makes the film what it is. Starting with Will Smith, he shows signs of diverse acting ability in one of his bigger hits onscreen. For a guy known mostly for comedic music and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, he turned a complete 180 in this film and brought some refined attitude and enormous screen presence. This movie changed this man’s career and made him mainstream for the world to see. Not to mention, he played a spectacular opposite for Martin Lawrence.
Lawrence’s Marcus was a great compliment to Smith’s Mike. Lawrence, who was known for stand-up comedy prior to this film, brought the same intensity that Smith did, but with a more comedic flavor. He starts out light with the action and ends up just as raw as Smith by the end of the film. Their characters, who were very different (Mike a rich, high-class cop; Marcus a family man trying to make it) end up on the same line of action intensity by the end of the film. It’s an amazing transformation and a real credit to both the actors for buying into their alter egos.
Protagonist aside, it was a real easy choice for Bay to acquire the services of Tchéky Karyo as the antagonist Fouchet, the heroin thief. He plays a scary, psychotic man that introduces all of this at the beginning of the film with one shot from his gun. Scheming and planning, this character cannot be outsmarted and Karyo plays that type of villain extremely well. One of his previous films, La Femme Nikita, shows how beautiful and terrible this man can be as a villain; he doesn’t disappoint.
Now, if there were a weak portion of the film it would have to be Téa Leoni. She is an out of place device that somehow brings the good guys and bad guys together. Her character is weak, annoying at times and regretfully necessary for the film to move along. Thankfully, she doesn’t hurt the chemistry between the two leads, but she does take too much screen time. I didn’t enjoy her character, but I dealt with it.
Anyway, the movie worked regardless of Leoni’s character and it ends well/strong.
Movie aside, the Blu-ray version of this film was damn good! For the most part studios generally slap together a movie re-release on Blu-ray without too much careful care for quality of visuals. Not to say they don’t usually try, but there are some films that look positively awful on Blu-ray if they had a bit more time spent on them. Thankfully, Bad Boys gets enough time and looks beautiful. There are virtually no artifacts in the picture. I’m not sure if that’s credit to Bay’s cinematographer’s constant use of color filters, but what you get is a truly remarkable picture for a movie that is 15 years old. It looks great and the audio is perfect.
Sony Pictures deserves a lot of credit for getting this Blu-ray right.
As for features, here’s what you’re looking at:
– Commentary from Michael Bay
– Putting the Boom & Bang in the Bad Boys
– Music Videos
– Movie IQ
While there isn’t a lot here, some is rehashed;, the movie IQ is pretty cool. You should check that out if you haven’t. Sony Pictures has done a great job with their BD-Live, if you’ve never seen that.