Decent buddy cop flick (Bad Boys (DVD))

Member Name: shaneo632

Product:	Bad Boys (DVD)
Date:	19/09/09 (4 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Performances and visuals

Disadvantages: Quite formulaic

note: also appears in part on Flixster and The Student Room

Bad Boys is the film that shot director Michael Bay to fame (or as some would argue, infamy) - it's one of his better and more focused films, with great chemistry between leads Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, establishing Smith as a bankable Hollywood star and action hero.

Marcus Burnett (Martin Lawrence) and Mike Lowrey (Will Smith) are detectives in the Miami-Dade Police Department. They recently nailed a $100m Heroin drug bust, but the drugs have been stolen from the police vault, causing their glory to all but fade away. The pesky Internal Affairs division shows up, claiming that the money was stolen by someone on the inside, and thus says that they have five days to get the money back or the Miami narcotics division will be shut down to make up the defecit, putting them out of work and also ensuring that drugs can flow freely in Miami.

Their only lead is Julie Mott (Téa Leoni), a woman who knows more than she lets on, but she'll only speak to Lowrey, and seeing as he's out of town at the time they find her, Burnett has to pretend to be Mike, and thus they keep this lie going, even moving into each other's apartments to keep with it, with the hope being they can keep their jobs and maintain clean streets.

If there's anything I have against Bad Boys, it's that it sits quite comfortably in the buddy cop formula and doesn't do anything to shake it up. On the plus side, though, it's visually stunning, as are most of Bay's films, and the action comes hard and fast. Also, Smith and Lawrence have great chemistry together, resulting in some hilarious scenes throughout.

A fun, slick, action-packed buddy film that entertains and doesn't take itself too seriously in the process.

Summary: Not reinventing the wheel but good