‘Boys’ Will be ‘Boys’
Nothing here is going to stop ‘Bad Boys’ fans from rushing to the fourquel and nothing here will win over newbies.
Bad Boys: Ride or Die
Director: Adil & Bilall • Writers: Chris Bremner, Will Beall
Starring: Will Smith, Martin Lawrence, Eric Dane, Jacob Scipio, Paola Núñez, Ioan Gruffudd, Rhea Seehorn, Vanessa Hudgens, Alexander Ludwig
USA • 1hr 55mins
Opens Hong Kong June 6 • IIB
Grade: B-
Bad Boys for Life has the distinction of being one of the highest grossing films of 2020, because as it turned out, it was the only game in town for a long, long, long time. The US$425 million it racked up in a shitty movie environment may or may not have had something to do with a fourth instalment following in just four years versus the 17 beween For Life and Bad Boys 2 in 2003, and that and the original in 1995. Of course, star and now producer Will Smith didn’t have a PR clusterfuck to clear up in 2020; despite being backburnered, The Slap is still a thing, so he’ll be banned from attending the Oscars this year to collect his awards for Bad Boys: Ride or Die.
JK. Ride or Die is exactly the same stoopid action comedy as the other three films purported to be, and returning Belgian arthouse crime thriller directing duo Adil El Arbi & Bilall Fallah does little to mix things up. They left their creativity in Europe, though they’re not given much to do with Chris Bremner (who penned Bad Boys for Life) and Aquaman and Justice League (!) scribe Will Beall’s by-the-numbers (or should we say by-the-AI now?) script. For the record, Beall is defibrillating Axel Foley for Eddie Murphy and Netflix in Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F this July. Just sayin’. All over the map tonally, mostly unfunny (Martin Lawrence’s schtick is even more tired than it was in 2004) and desperate with misguided “drama”, Ride or Die doesn’t get up a Bad Boys-style head of steam until about the mid-way point. Once the heroes become fugitives and ditch the D&M Adil & Bilall prove they too can get nauseating with a camera; I never thought I’d miss Michael Bay’s sense of action filmmaking craft. Still, once the steam starts it trucks along nicely, at least by Bad Boys standards.
Please forget about that slap…
In the grand tradition of Rocky Balboa, The Last Jedi and Top Gun: Maverick, Ride or Die turns a very dim spotlight on the rapidly advancing age of Miami PD detectives Mike Lowrey (Smith) and Marcus Burnett (Lawrence). They still drive Porsches and live in sprawling oceanside homes, but Mike is still recovering from being shot by his long lost drug cartel son Armando (Jacob Scipio, Expend4bles) in more ways than one. At his wedding (what’s that now?) to his former physiotherapist (?) Christine (Melanie Liburd), bestie Marcus has a heart attack. The Bad Boys are getting on, man. Meantime, a super-traumatised but also psychotic ex-DEA agent, McGrath (Eric “McSteamy” Dane), is … trying to get rich? Take over the Mexican drug trade? Skip town? Something, and he reverse engineers some damning evidence that fingers Mike and Marcus’s (can we just call them M&M?) beloved and deceased captain, Conrad Howard (Joe Pantoliano in a cameo) as a MPD cartel collaborator. M&M’s captain at the force’s techy AMMO section, Rita Secada (Paola Núñez), has no chioce but to continue the investigation into dirty cops, supported by her new boyfriend and mayoral candidate Lockwood (Ioan Gruffudd, San Andreas, Hollywood’s new “Oh! He’s the bad guy!”). Hey, hot tip: maybe look into city employees with Porsches and sprawling oceanside homes. One thing leads to another as M&M try to vindicate Howard, and they wind up teaming with Armando while being pursued as fugitives by US Marshal Judy Howard (Rhea Seehorn, Better Call Saul) – Howard’s daughter. Uh-oh.
Unlike the aforementioned, better examinations of ageing and obsolescence, there’s a limit to how fallible Smith – you know he’s totally Vin Dieseling this franchise – will allow M&M to come across in Bad Boys: Ride or Die. Even as they acknowledge Marcus’s health scare, Bremner and Beall turn it into a catalyst for reflection and inner peace, and Mike’s PTSD panic attacks and unresolved guilt over Howard’s death get the shortest of shrift. Given the domestic drama we’re forced to endure in the first half, the duo’s back-to-business recoveries (come on, there’s a limit to Marcus’s warm and fuzzy too) seem to take all of five minutes.
But when those five minutes finally come and go, and M&M wind up in a plane wreck with Armando the film takes off. Scipio shows off a bit more personality than he was able to in For Life, and thankfully he gets to leave the Antonio Banderas circus act at home. There’s some creative violence (a prison yard fight is terrifically nasty), M&M’s country song riff (they fake a Reba McEntire ballad) is legit amusing, and all of this captured by singularly frenetic, non-stop camerawork by DOP Robrecht Heyvaert. Kelly and Dorn (Vanessa Hudgens and Alexander Ludwig) are back as the modern, tech-forward AMMO squad that really “get” how to parse the digital evidence M&M find, suggesting there’s no end for the franchise – yet. Armando is reformed, and it turns out Marcus’s son-in-law Reggie the marine (Dennis Greene) is a badass. There’s no reason not to pass the torch, especially if Smith is redeemed by fat box office returns (highly probable). He’s moved on. Chris Rock has moved on. He’s a giant movie star for a reason. Academy pearl-clutchers seem to be the only ones trapped in a time warp. And for the record yes: The master, Michael Bay, has a cameo. — DEK