Rating: C+
Dir: Adil El Arbi, Bilall Fallah
Star: Will Smith, Martin Lawrence, Jacob Scipio, Eric Dane
I was a little surprised this got made at all, after The Slap Heard Round the World. But I guess Hollywood will forgive anyone, if they put enough butts in seats. Though I was amused by the film’s tacit acknowledgement of the incident, with a scene in which Marcus Burnett (Lawrence) slaps his long-time cop partner, Mike Lowrey (Smith), repeatedly, while yelling “Bad boy!”. Otherwise, it’s largely what you’d expect. Nice it leans into the age of Burnett in particular, with him having a near-fatal heart attack at Lowrey’s wedding. This gives him an… interesting outlook on life, now believing he can’t die, and that he and Lowrey are reincarnated partners from previous lives.
In terms of actual plot, it begins with someone trying to frame their late boss, Captain Howard, as on the take. Lowrey and Burnett won’t stand for that, and uncover a network of corruption, run by former Army Ranger McGrath (Dane). But trying to expose it puts their families in danger, including Armando (Scipio), whom if you remember, was Lowrey’s son by Isabel Aretas from the previous installment. In other words, a fairly thin excuse: quite why the bad guys bother planting evidence on a dead man nobody really cares about, is never clear. It does the job, providing a pretext for car chases, gun battles and foul-mouthed banter. [At least they didn’t go PG-13. Rated R for “strong bloody violence, language throughout, sexual references, and brief drug use”]
We had some difficulty remembering whether or not we’d seen this. Even the trailer didn’t help. I persisted, mostly in the belief, I would have reviewed it if I had. I’m still not prepared to swear I had not watched it before. I suspect, by the time this review is published, it will be the sole evidence for my viewing, my memory of the experience having melted like snow off a dike. Am I growing old and feeble? Or is it just a shiny Hollywood bauble, highly polished and forgettable? Could be a bit of both. Despite the rating, this certainly feels like a hundred million dollar episode of Miami Vice, between the fast cars, high fashion and pop soundtrack.
There are some decent action sequences, directed with enthusiasm. A crashing helicopter offers one, though I think my favourite may have been a relatively brief fight in a descending elevator. These help balance the obvious and dumb nature of the plot. Yet the film leans into its own idiocy, not least in a post-credit sequence set thousands of years ago. It’s a ludicrous payoff to a mid-movie discussion, and also riffs on one of Smith’s most famous roles. Weirdly, I found myself wanting Bad Boys 5 to be entirely along the same lines: Burnett and Lowrey tripping through history. I’m not sure if that’s tribute to the chemistry of the characters, or an indication towards the generic nature of this fourth installment.