Bad Company
**
Cinema Releases - July 12, 2002
Rated on a 4-star scale. Certificate 12. USA.
116 minutes. Directed by Joel Schumacher. Written by Michael Browning, Jason
Richman; from a story by Gary Goodman, David Himmelstein. Starring Chris
Rock, Anthony Hopkins, Matthew Marsh, Kerry Washington, Peter
Stormare.
Is "Bad Company" a comedy or a thriller?
I ask the question not to be sarcastic, but because I can't figure out the
answer. The trailer left me unsure, and now, having seen the movie, I feel
no better informed.
Chris Rock plays an undercover spy attempting
to foil a terrorist plot to buy suitcase nukes and detonate them in New York
City. When he is killed, his boss, played by Anthony Hopkins, finds his long-lost
twin brother (also played by Rock) in an attempt to train him in the art
of spy bluffing and complete the original mission.
The twin is a street-smart brutha who dropped
out of college and makes money through scalping tickets, hustling at chess
in the park and doing occasional DJ gigs. Therefore the training scenes,
in which Hopkins teaches Rock how to walk, talk and act in the manner of
an undercover agent, have a fish-out-of-water quality to them. "Bad Company"
never adopts the manic farce of "Spies Like Us", but it is supposed to be
about a goofy personality reacting to a serious situation.
So where's the beef? Rock is energetic and engaging,
but his character doesn't provide a running commentary or make his situation
ridiculous. Any and all wisecracks seem to exist aside from the material.
When Rock asks about his brother's taste in music, it's just an excuse to
crack a Run DMC joke. It raises a smile, but it doesn't give the scene a
comedic point.
The last hour of the film, in which Rock has to
put theory into practice and team up with Hopkins to stop terrorists getting
hold of the nuclear device, abandons jokes altogether to become a dreary
series of car chases and moments in which bad guys point guns at good guys
before getting interrupted.
And yet the film stays loose enough to avoid
generating tension. It's shot in tones as dark as those of David Fincher
pictures, and we buy the emotions of Rock's backstory, which involves a whole
lot of stuff about feelings for his girlfriend and the direction of his life.
But there's never any sense that Rock has been plunged into dangerous situations;
more than anything else, he seems anxious to get a chance at performing.
Extremes of thrills and tomfoolery can be combined (look at the original
"Beverly Hills Cop"), but not here -- the action scenes play as functional,
so we keep waiting for punchlines that never arrive.
One scene in particular encapsulates the lack
of tone. Rock, as the twin, is sent to his dead brother's apartment block
as a test to see whether he can fool the neighbours of his identity. The
dainty woman from downstairs invites Rock to her apartment, and seems like
she's got something saucy or secretive up her sleeve. Some kind of joke is
being set up. Rock then goes to her flat, has a look at her newest vase,
exclaims that it's expensive, goes back upstairs and ends up in a gunfight.
Huh?
This is a movie to be written off and forgotten.
Chris Rock has great talent; in the stand-up movie "Bring the Pain" he combined
enthusiasm with style and timing, and demonstrated a mastery of subjects
grand and frivolous. "Bad Company" features his second starring role -- his
first being "Down to Earth", which was nowhere near as muddled and pointless
as this, but still pretty bad. Get it together, man.
COPYRIGHT©
2002 Ian Waldron-Mantgani
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