Cinema of couples and contrasts, of bickering and lethal blows. Politically incorrect, because here women are (still) decoration. Cut and packaged for exploitation on platformswith empathetic stars and a typically television scheme, where the protagonists accomplish very difficult feats by behaving like ordinary people, ordinary people, bickering about their children’s school, about wives and girlfriends, about troubles at work. Nothing new, after all. It would be enough to think about Miami Vicein Starsky and Hutch, ad Lethal Weapon or to the formula all sganassoni by Bud Spencer and Terence Hill. The takings are mostly high, they make show business go round, they block the public’s taste in a banal way and alternate funny moments with confusing lapses in style amidst the din of digital effects.
With its repetitive vitality, can we say that action cinema is today a laboratory, a launching pad, episode number zero of a possible TV series? It can be said, yes. Take Bad Boys: Ride or Diethe fourth chapter of the saga about the friendly police scoundrels of Miami, Florida, started by Michael Bay in 1995. The start at the American box office was brilliant. L’hybrid movie presents the duet / duel between the deceitful cops Mike Lowrey (Will Smith) and Marcus Burnett (Martin Lawrence), directed by another couple, Edil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, already directors of the third episode of the serial, Boys for Life (2020). The screenwriter, once again, is George Bremer on a story by George Gallo.
Mike and Marcus must keep the Mexican drug cartels at bay. In the middle there is a dirty corruption deal in which the old boss of the two, Captain Howard, was involved. Mike and Marcus, with mirrored honesty, bring the snag to light, but end up under accusation, so as to spend the two hours of the film exculpating themselves in an increasingly tangled investigative do-it-yourself, involving Captain Howard’s daughter, and his granddaughter Callie.
The deviant agents seek revenge: “You are alone now.” The gears of the broken system try to crush Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. In the end, a buddy movieat least in part, which talks about generational conflictof dads who don’t want to give up and kids who use it as an excuse not to commit. The setting is an important part of the pastiche with beaches, luxury cars, flowered shirts, minimal sexy bikinis, overexposed colors, traces of (post) Reagan hedonism and inevitable winks at the Hispanic audience. Helicopters crash, fights and brawls are countless, escapes and chases are a tax to pay. Moral: America has lost its innocence and almost everyone is a double agent.
Relying on a consolidated project, Will Smith raises his head after the gaffe at the Oscars with the slap to Chris Rock, a nice episode of public trash transformed here into an easy parody. Martin Lawrence is the ideal supporting character, like Carlo Campanini for Walter Chiari and Sandra for her Raimondo. The watchwords are dynamism, energy, irony, albeit slippery. The clash between good and evil takes place among the alligators. But the most ferocious subjects stay out of the water.
BAD BOYS: RIDE OR DIE by Adil-El Arbi, Bilall Fallah
(USA, 2024, duration 115′, Eagle Pictures)
with Will Smith, Martin Lawrence, Vanessa Hudgens, Alexander Ludwig, Paola Nunez, Eric Dane, Ioan Grufudd
Rating: 2 ½ out of 5
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