Remember way back when Michael Bay wasn’t responsible for teenaged-fantasy films of semi-nudity, explosions, and gratuitous slow-mo? Yeah, me neither.
But, Bad Boys, being Bay’s first film after a successful music video career is far less packed with Bay-isms that have come to define the director over the next twenty years even if they are there in their infancy. At this point, Bay had the flash and likely the charm to win him the roles, but Bad Boys (at least the first one) is not a Michael Bay film per se. It is a Will Smith-Martin Lawrence buddy cop trope on film that just happens to be directed by Bay.
Smith and Lawrence are elite (in movie world terms, meaning they get their shit done) members of Miami’s narcotics unit. After a big haul of heroin is stolen from the police headquarters and a personal connection to Smith’s Mike Lowrey is gunned down, the movie coasts for most of it’s run-time strictly on the banter between the two leads. Not that this is a bad thing, at least in my opinion.
Granted, I saw Bad Boys in theaters when it first came out and have owned it on some version of home video ever since. While plot-wise, it does very little to separate itself from the glut of other odd-team, buddy cop movies, Lowrey and Lawrence’s Marcus Burnette do have a nice chemistry throughout, especially under the stain of having star witness Julie (Téa Leoni) under the impression that Burnette is Lowrey. This is made all the more funny for the viewer since the two titular ‘Bad Boys’ have complimitary styles: Lowrey is the smooth operator while Burnette is the uppity, worry-wort.
But the film does have its charms in this pairing as even though it is an action-packed Michael Bay fantasy come to film, the humor is pervasive throughout especially as the Julie’s mix-up means Lowrey shacking up with Burnette’s wife to comedic gold. But this is far from fallow ground, especially in buddy-cop formula. Also not helping matters of deja vu are the put-upon wife, always complaining about the husband’s police career, and the stress-filled and angry police captain played by Joe Pantoliano. The film’s villain Fouchet played by Tchéky Karyo is just menacing and dangerous enough to help move the plot along without distracting from the main comedic duo attraction.
Having seen an awful lot of Bay films (many of them awful, natch), all of the director’s personal trademarks are here but are quite muted compared to his later output. Sure, there’s the aforementioned slow-mo and extreme close-ups throughout the film but the overall tone of the film is much more generic action style with some Bay flair thrown in.
It isn’t until the finale, apparently located at an abandoned fireworks factory filling in for an airplane hanger, that Bay’s panache for big spectacular explosions, MOAR SLO-MO, and big hero pieces come into play. But even with the finale as big and loud as it can be, everything is coherent and doesn’t suffer as much from the rapid-fire editing that would later be deployed again and again in Bay’s films.
While I actively despise most of his latest output (both directorial and producing), Bay made some decent films in his early career. While The Rock is undoubtedly (UNDOUBTEDLY DAMMIT!) his best, Bad Boys is far from a terrible way to spend under two hours with a couple of wise-cracking cops, a sassy witness, and a bunch of explosions. Just like a teenager would think.
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