It’s May and the only film released in 2020 I’ve seen in an actual theater has been Bad Boys for Life; at this rate, I’m thinking it could take Best Picture at next year’s Academy Awards.
And, even if it did happen, I really wouldn’t be mad because, for all intents and purposes, this third film in the Bad Boys series — set some 15 or so years later — is the buddy-cop film I’ve been patiently waiting for since, at the very least, Bad Boys 2.
Mike Lowery (Will Smith) and Marcus Burnett (Martin Lawrence) are the two titular bad boys of the Miami PD, wrecking cars and blowing up shit, throwing out comedic bon mots with every act of public destruction. The fun comes to an end, however, when, during a fun footrace, Lowery is shot at point-blank range by an enterprising cartel heir on a black motorcycle.
It turns out that, before he was a bad boy, Lowery was an undercover boy, working with a government agency to go deep undercover as a Mexican drug lord’s lover. That mujer (Kate del Castillo, pigeonholing herself) is mad as hell, having spent decades in jail; now she’s a bruja out for bloody revenge that takes the duo — as well as a squad of younger bad people — to Mexico where life is, apparently, cheap.
Taking the high-speed reins from Michael Bay — who cameos as a wooden wedding guest — directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah have got his patented blueprint down for this type of over-the-top film which, really, is pretty basic by now; thankfully, they’ve added plenty of their own stolen touches, obviously inspired by the Fast & Furious flicks.
With a fourth film in the works, my only complaint is they really should have saved this title for the next one, the “for” a stylized number 4: Bad Boys 4 Life … I think it works, right? —Louis Fowler