Movie Review: ‘Bad Boys: Ride or Die’

NEW YORK (OSV News) – The outstanding characteristic of the “Bad Boys” buddy cop movies has always been the sheer delight with which they depict violence. So when, after a two-film rampage over the turn of the millennium, the franchise fell quiescent for almost as long as Rip Van Winkle snoozed, it was a case of letting a sleeping cinematic dog lie.

But no, along came co-directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah who apparently felt the world needed a reboot, and thus we were given 2020’s “Bad Boys for Life.” Four years and a global pandemic later, they return to sic their reawakened hound on audiences a second time with “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” (Columbia).

At first, it seems as though the proceedings might be kept on a leash, albeit a long one. As the twin pillars of the series, longtime Miami police partners and best friends Mike Lowrey (Will Smith) and Marcus Burnett (Martin Lawrence), face their latest challenge, the gunplay in which they engage is initially somewhat restrained.

The detectives are out to vindicate their deceased, much-beloved superior officer, Capt. Howard (Joe Pantoliano), who’s being retroactively framed as a corrupt cop in league with drug runners. Luckily for them, Howard, foreseeing his own death, left them a couple of videos to help them unearth a cache of exonerating evidence he carefully concealed.

But the shadowy figures behind the powerful conspiracy to smear Howard (the most prominent played by Eric Dane) prove just as capable of making the wise-cracking pals look guilty when they get too close to the truth.

By the time Mike and Marcus resolve the case, mayhem of various kinds has built to a gruesome climax, with characters and extras not only being felled by bullets, but chewed up by an airplane propeller and chomped on by a giant alligator. Since the gator’s victim is one of the principal villains, viewers are invited to revel in his grisly fate.

There are some laughs to be had as Mike plays annoyed straight man to comically quirky Marcus’ eccentricities. And the complexity of Mike’s relationship with his long-unknown son, Armando (Jacob Scipio), a dyed-in-the-wool criminal, might have been delved into intriguingly in a picture more ably penned — or with different preoccupations.

So, too, might a heartfelt bid for redemption through self-sacrifice Armando expresses his willingness to undergo. As scripted by Chris Bremner and Will Beall, however, Armando’s moral awakening remains merely a momentary affair, one that’s not allowed to get in the way of the slick shoot-outs and careening car chases that constitute this sequel’s real agenda.

The film contains excessive bloody violence, including torture, a flash of rear nudity, a couple of profanities, numerous milder oaths, vulgar sexual references and pervasive rough and crude language. The OSV News classification is O — morally offensive. The Motion Picture Association rating is R — restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.

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