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War on drugs ludicrous in 'Boys'
By John Behling
Published:
Thursday, July 24, 2003
When I asked my friend, who had seen the original 1995 "Bad Boys," if Will Smith struck him as being a tad on the vulgar side, I felt like a parent holding Eminem's Marshall Mathers LP toward a record store clerk.
"Now I've heard his new stuff, and it's pretty raunchy. Is his old stuff like that too? Can I get this for my son?"
My friend said no, adding to my puzzlement over the sequel. The former Fresh Prince is known to trickle passive rhymes over gentle beats in songs about simple body movements, or hanging out with your son. On one track he even challenges Eminem to "write a verse without a curse." I guess he didn't make a similar challenge to Bad Boys 2 screenwriter Ron Shelton.
From frame one, Will Smith rattles off the F-bomb in every scene. In only seconds he's earned the film industry's parental advisory warning: the R-rating. In minutes he's gaining ground on Eminem's F-count. By the end I think even Martin Lawrence is offended.
Bling-bling cops Smith and Lawrence crusade against an evil ecstasy-smuggling Cubano (Jordi Molla) in this vehicle driven by producer/director super-duo Jerry Bruckheimer and Michael Bay ("Pearl Harbor," "Armageddon"). As a side note, Smith gets jiggy with Lawrence's sexy sister (Gabrielle Union) but doesn't have the heart to tell his "reformed" bad boy partner.
The war on drugs has never been more glamorous, or more ludicrous. Smith and Lawrence protect the innocent, drug-free public with a street war that rivals Black Hawk Down, covering the freeway in blood and motor oil, while still keeping good spirits and high fashion. Although they do have their buddy-buddy lull-between-chase-scene moments, most of their bonding is done screaming at each other while ducking bullets and driving dangerously. Which is OK for me; after five minutes I couldn't stand either one of them. Also after five minutes, there were 145 minutes remaining in the film. How can a film that drives fast, talks fast and kills fast be so incredibly slow?
The pace seems to be a tactic of Bruckheimer and Bay, both veterans of summertime box office warfare. The film trudges from spectacle to spectacle with the rhythm of an invading army marching slowly through the desert.
Bruckheimer and Bay handle the film's gore and grit like tired generals who know that war isn't pretty but also know what must be done for the sake of box office blockbusting. But there are moments where Michael Bay handles the visual carpet-bombing like a sniper.
The way he stages, captures and manipulates action is poetry for the mainstream filmmaker. Unlike the stylized direction of "28 Days Later" or the "The Matrix: Reloaded," "Bad Boys 2" has art in the undertones.
There are fleeting moments of innovative, even sublime camera work in "Bad Boys 2." But predominantly, his sharp-shooting is hard to spot. Like a sniper with a grenade launcher, there's seldom any of the target left for inspection.
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