Bad Boys is a
1995 action comedy film directed by
Michael Bay, produced by
Don Simpson/
Jerry
Bruckheimer, producers of
Top
Gun and
Beverly Hills
Cop, and starring
Martin
Lawrence and
Will Smith. The film
also spawned a 2003 sequel,
Bad Boys
II, with a second sequel,
Bad Boys
III expected to be released in 2011.
Plot
Marcus Burnett (
Martin Lawrence) and
Mike Lowrey (
Will Smith) are detective
sergeants in the
Miami-Dade
Police Department. One night, $100 million of seized heroin is
stolen by gangsters from a secure police vault. This is a major
blow to Burnett and Lowrey, because it was the biggest drug bust of
their careers.
Internal Affairs believe
it was an inside job and issue an ultimatum—if they do not recover
the drugs in five days, the narcotics division will be shut down.
It is quickly discovered that one of the gang members was Eddie
Domínguez, a former cop, who has absconded with some of the heroin.
Dominguez
is shot to death by his boss, French
drug kingpin
Fouchet (Tchéky Karyo), who also
kills escort Maxine "Max" Logan (Karen Alexander), one of Lowery's
ex-girlfriends. The only witness to the crime is Max's best
friend Julie Mott (
Téa Leoni).
Although she has never met him, Julie will only testify to Lowrey,
but he is out of contact when she threatens to run, so Burnett is
forced to impersonate him in order to get her to co-operate. In
order to continue the deception Burnett moves Julie into Lowrey's
apartment, which he himself has to move into, while Lowrey moves in
with Burnett's family and claims to be Burnett in Julie's presence
while Burnett claims to be Lowrey.
Eventually, Fouchet and his gang of criminals learn where Julie is
and kidnap her. Burnett attempts to get her back after her
kidnapping Julie but is unsuccessful.
Burnett, Lowrey and
two other members of the Miami P.D. organize a plan to stop the
criminals from killing Julie and selling the drugs to a Colombian
drug lord. A final shoot-out erupts between
Burnett, Lowrey and the drug dealers. The criminals are eliminated
by Burnett, Lowrey, Julie and the other Miami P.D members after
Julie is saved. But during the process Burnett is injured but is
rescued by Lowrey and Julie in Burnett's Porsche. A final car chase
erupts with Fouchet and Burnett and Lowrey causing Fouchet to
crash. Fouchet attempts to kill them but is knocked out by both of
them, except Fouchet tries another time but this time Lowrey and
Burnett are facing the other way. Luckily, Lowrey sees the
reflection from Fouchets pistol on Burnett's face and shoots him
dead. At the end the police are at the scene and are happy with
what they've done. Then Burnett (Martin Lawrence) plays a prank and
handcuffs Julie's and Lowrey's (Will Smith) hands together.
Cast
Production
In the film's early stages of development, Don Simpson and Jerry
Bruckheimer initially envisioned
Dana
Carvey and
Jon Lovitz in the roles.
When the movie was written for Carvey and Lovitz, the original
title for
Bad Boys was
Bulletproof
Hearts.
Both Martin Lawrence and Will Smith were starring in their own hit
TV shows,
Martin and
The Fresh Prince of
Bel-Air when filming this movie.
The Fresh Prince of
Bel-Air even references the film in an episode. When Nicky
Banks tells Will that his mom and dad won't let him watch
Bad
Boys, to which Will replies, "Oh, so whatcha gonna do?"
Improvisation
Director Michael Bay didn't like the script and often engaged Will
Smith and Martin Lawrence in discussions about how the dialogue and
scenes could improve. He often allowed them to improvise while the
cameras were rolling. He secretly told Will to call Lawrence a
bitch before the car scene. The whole "two bitches in the sea" was
improvised, as was Martin's comment when Téa Leoni called him
gay.
The scene in the convenience store where the clerk puts a gun to
Burnett and Lowrey's heads and tells them to "Freeze, bitch!" is
also improvised. They came up with "No,
you freeze, bitch!
Now back up, put the gun down and get me a pack of Tropical Fruit
Bubbalicious". "And some Skittles."
According to Michael Bay in his DVD commentary, at the end of the
film when Mike (Smith) and Marcus (Lawrence) are recuperating, Mike
says "I love you, man." Bay claims that Smith refused to say the
line, causing the director and actor to argue back and forth over
the line. Bay wanted Smith to say the line as he felt it summed up
the friendship between the cops. After their argument had lasted
for half of the day's shoot and much of the crew was ready to pack
up, a fed up Bay told Smith to do whatever he wanted, after which
Smith changed his mind and agreed to say the line.
Reaction and commercial success
The film itself was commercially successful, as its total gross was
estimated at $65.8 million in the United states and $75 million
overseas. However, critical reception was generally negative with
most of the criticisms focusing on the fact that despite the
production of the film and the ability of the stars, the script did
not diverge from the generic plot of a
cop-buddy genre film, instead opting for
repeated use of formulaic scenes.
The current
Rotten Tomatoes
tomatometer shows that 42% of critics that they indexed gave the
film positive reviews, with the "Top Critics" score remaining at
14%.
Roger Ebert in his video review of the film on
At The Movies noted that despite the highly
energetic approach of the two lead actors and the visual style of
the film, their acting talents were mostly "new wine in old
bottles". He illustrated that many of the elements featured in the
film including both the plot and characters had been recycled from
other movies, particularly those from the
Lethal Weapon and
Beverley Hills Cop series -- recurrent
stock-characters, police detective clichés and over-long action
scenes. In describing the archetypal cop-buddy genre action scene
adhered to by the film, Ebert noted "Whenever a movie like this
starts to drag, there's always one infallible solution; have a
car-chase and then blow something up REAL good."
Gene Siskel in his appraisal of the the film said that he had lost
interest in the film after its introduction due to the very
formulaic approach, and repeated Roger Ebert's criticism that the
talents of the lead actors were wasted; suggesting that the
production company did not spend significant time producing a
script which would be suitable for their talents.
Reviews from moviegoers were generally positive and many of them
felt that the movie injected new interest and reinvigorated the
buddy cop genre. Some fans of the
movie even compared
Bad Boys to
Lethal Weapon in the sense that both
films had two male leads who are at odds with each other while
trying to solve cases together. Between the two,
Bad Boys
is viewed to be a faster movie than
Lethal Weapon (which
relied on intrigue and suspense).
Because of the popularities of Smith, Lawrence and Bay,
Bad
Boys continues to enjoy heavy playtime oncable television
networks as well as continued presence in video stores
worldwide.
Soundtrack
A soundtrack containing hip hop and R&B was released on March
25, 1995 by
Work Records. It peaked at
#26 on the
Billboard 200 and #13 on
the
Top R&B/Hip-Hop
Albums.
The album was well received by fans of the rap/R&B genres, but
disappointed fans of Mark Mancina's movie score, as only one of up
to fifteen tracks composed for the film by Mancina was featured on
the album. Also, most of the
industrial
rock tracks, which featured primarily in the "Club Hell" scene,
are also missing from the album. These include "Nothing" by
Stabbing Westward, "Angels" by
Dink, and "Sweet Little Lass" by
DAG.
The original score by Mark Mancina was released in September 2007
by La-La Land Records as a limited edition of 3000 copies.
See also
References
- IN THE DRESSING ROOM WITH DANA CARVEY; Every Night
Live? - New York Times
- McCarthy, Todd., 1995. Bad Boys Review Variety
Magazine [Internet] Available at http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117903909.html?categoryid=31&cs=1
- Ebert, Roger., Siskel, Gene., 1995 Bad Boys Review [Internet
Video] Available at http://bventertainment.go.com/tv/buenavista/atm/reviews.html?sec=1&subsec=1313
Buena-Vista Television
- BAD BOYS - Original Score Album by Mark Mancina
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