Will Smith is known to have no sense of humor. We’ve known that ever since the actor punched Chris Rock in the jaw at the Oscars two years ago for making a lame joke about Smith’s wife Jada Pinkett Smith. Since then, Smith has kept a low profile. Lying low, as they say in American criminal jargon. Let the grass grow over the matter first. Because: An unfunny comedian is somehow damaging to one’s reputation.
Producer Jerry Bruckheimer and Sony are also said to have thought long and hard about whether it would be a good idea to let Will Smith loose on the world once again as a stubborn, advice-resistant, violent macho, in the role of Detective Michael “Mike” Lowrey, one half of the “Bad Boys” who have been maintaining a delicate balance between peace and strife in Miami since the mid-1990s. The Hollywood strike came at just the right time and delayed filming. Now, it was apparently decided, 2022 is long enough in the past, at least measured by the attention span of the present, which makes a clean sweep of all 725 Instagram reels and simply cannot remember what it was trying to do.
And it’s true that little scandals fade on the shores of time like Foucault’s famous face of man in the sand. But the big picture remains, the decisive events that retrospectively add up to what we call history. And, as crazy as it sounds, Michael Bay’s “Bad Boys” from 1995 is one of them. The plot of the saga has of course long been forgotten. It’s probably about a chunk of stolen heroin, what else, after all, we’re in Miami, the number one drug hub for vaguely South American export hits. The clock is ticking, 72 hours of running and speeding, because long before “Fast and Furious” Lowrey thundered along in a black Porsche 911 without a care for the tires.
But that’s the real keyword: black, recently also capitalized more often. Back then, mainstream blockbusters without at least one white protagonist and with a reggae theme song were still a rarity: “Bad Boys, Bad Boys / Watcha gonna do when they come for you.” Even the song by the Jamaican band Inner Circle didn’t become a hit until years after its release.
In 1995, when the film was released in American cinemas, Barack Obama had just finished his autobiography “Dreams from My Father,” whose subtitle in German is harmless “The story of my family,” but in the original translation is more pointed “A story of race and heritage.” The Harvard Law School graduate was warming up for a senator’s office in Illinois. We know the rest, we remember how the seeds of hope sprouted in a torn country that, especially in its southern states, was not always far from mourning slavery.
Then the dream was over. America’s superego, which Obama represented, disappeared into obscurity in favor of its id, the dark, uncouth drives, the instinctive brutality, the narcissism and egomania that are exemplified in Donald Trump. Joe Biden was never really able to put the lid on it again.
“Bad Boys,” which had a sequel in 2003, was practically dead. Two funny black police officers who ignored all customs of decency, morality and sometimes even the law, who also came from a generation that had never heard of “woke,” who understood military drill more than complaining about sensitivities, had suddenly fallen rudely out of touch with the times. They were the heirs of the tough blaxploitation guys like Shaft or Sweet Sweetback, who knew that when they cried, no one would come to comfort them, and who therefore preferred to be tougher than their enemies. An attitude that has a lot to be said for it, but may also encourage people to stand up at an Oscar ceremony and punch the host for making a stupid comment.
In any case, it took two Belgians of Moroccan origin, Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, to revive the buddy franchise in 2020 with “Bad Boys for Life”. And lo and behold: the recipe still worked, or already worked again, or maybe just like those super-expensive restaurants that go back to things that grandma used to cook, Königsberger Klopse, Tafelspitz, but with a twist – and of course the usual inflation: the first film cost 19 million dollars in 1995, the new one 100.
The new film “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” follows a similar strategy. Will Smith is still Detective Mike Lowrey, Martin Lawrence is still his partner Marcus Burnett. Burnett is the comical lump, so to speak, and Smith is the Hollywood star sauce. Without Burnett, whose eye-rolling you have to be more careful of than hand grenades tumbling towards you, the whole thing would probably be a flop. Because Will Smith is still not really funny, maybe he never was, or he just enjoys satirizing his own image.
The opening scene is emblematic here. He drives the 911 – which used to look better than the high-tech tank of the current model – along the promenade in Miami Beach to his own wedding. Because in his mid-fifties, that’s how old Smith is now, he’s put the nonsense behind him and claims to have grown up. At least that’s his excuse to jealous exes who snippily declare that they were probably not the right one. But you don’t really believe him. With his driving style, he harasses poor Lawrence/Burnett in the passenger seat until he says: “Either I get a ginger ale right now or I’m going to throw up.”
Only out of concern for the leather seats does Smith hurl the Porsche to a hairpin stop. Lawrence sneaks exhausted into the deli, but no sooner has he fallen in love with Skittles and a hot dog than a (white) robber comes along. Oh no! The man is about to ruin the wedding. “Let me out of here now,” Lawrence implores the robber, “or in 15 seconds there will be a really sour guy here who is not to be messed with.” The robber has obviously missed the Oscars. Enter Will Smith. What is a punch in the chin in Los Angeles is a shot in the knee in Miami. “That really didn’t have to happen!” complains Lawrence. But Smith just slaps the candy away from him in a bad mood.
That’s as meta as Lawrence’s near-death experience at the wedding: a heart attack. Next scene: He wakes up from the anesthesia. Lawrence: “What year is it?” Smith: “Tuesday.” He promptly runs up to the hospital roof and shows the world his butt. From then on, he thinks he’s immortal, which firstly makes for lots of funny moments and secondly is a great image for the film itself, the “Bad Boys” series, which neither Trump nor any other redneck can kill.
At one point – Smith and Lawrence have long been on the run from their own people because a nasty guy with self-esteem issues has framed them for all sorts of serious crimes – they actually get caught in the crossfire of two rednecks. “You think we stole your clothes,” shouts Lawrence, “but you only think that because we’re black! I took this black T-shirt out of my black closet this morning!” Smith shoves him. “Look what it says”: Pure-bred white boy. Oops.
Or the ultimate evil wants his people’s murders to look like a drug cartel: “From now on, only speak Spanish.”
A film this clever can get away with all the silliness, a rickety fight in a crashing police helicopter, a shootout in an art gallery full of flying candy, and even an albino alligator. You’d almost think you were back in the ’90s. And that wouldn’t be a bad thing.
