When it’s bad being Bad.

Geez, I hope no one confuses the sex appeal and street-kewl of these Hollywood-ized detectives with the misinformed rednecks that are real cops. Too late…

BULLITT (1968), DIRTY HARRY (1971, four sequels), THE SUPER COPS (1974), BEVERLY HILLS COP (1984, two sequels), LETHAL WEAPON (1987, three sequels), COPS (1989 TV series, 27 seasons and still going strong in 2014) – the list of movies and TV shows that celebrate the phallic thrust of the bottom rung of law enforcement is literally endless. Is it any wonder that synergy continues into the 90s, with bigger explosions, bigger budgets and bigger phallic thrusts?

BAD BOYS Martin Lawrence and Will Smith are two comedians trying to make drug busts in Miami (which is basically a description of cops in Miami). On the tail of a 100 million dollar shipment for Euro badness Tchéky Karyo, they must also rescue mega-hotness Téa Leoni as a murder witness, must keep Lieutenant Joe Pantoliano out of their pantaloons, dodge Internal Affairs sexpot Marg Helgenberger, and placate Martin’s nagging wife, Theresa Randle. Their “theme song” is Inner Circle’s Bad Boys…

Michael Bay directs in his film debut, and we see all those swooping camera moves and slomo hero shots that would become a staple of his style. Maybe he was a natural extension of his predecessors, maybe a creature of his era? Maybe a copycat of some obscure European director, or a pioneer? I don’t know; I just know that this bombastic Pretty-Orange-Explosion, low-angle, guns-and-cars-and-cheese motif would inform the bulk of Hollywood blockbusters in the decades to come. We must admit, for all the chickendipshittery of it all – it looks great, with the production team of Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson helming the slick affair, with a lotta laughs from the easy chemistry between Lawrence and Smith, and edge-of-your-seat thrills from Bay’s swooping cams. There’s no way we’ll ever confuse this glossy afterburner with the grit of DIRTY HARRY or the breeze of LETHAL WEAPON.

The title of the movie itself is a massive case of reappropriation (the act of taking an insult and claiming it as a badge of honor, like headbanger, jarhead, nigger, etc.). Bad Boys was a 1987 reggae song that referred to criminals as “bad boys.” However, after it was misused/overused as the COPS TV show theme song, its perception was twisted and seemed to apply to the cops as “badasses.” In fact, this movie uses the song blatantly as the epithet for Lawrence and Smith’s badass quipping buddy cops; they actually sing a snatch of the song as they roll in their souped-up Porsche 911 Turbo II 3.6. That’s what Hollywood calls realism.

But cops, policemen, baconators – whatever you want to call them – are NOT your quipping pals who would judiciously discern you are not a “bad boy” and let you walk if they accidentally bumped into you on the street or near a crime scene. And whenever you call the cops for any reason, make sure all your alcohol is hidden, all your drugs are flushed, all your porn is stashed, all the bruises on your girlfriend’s arm from Krav Maga are covered, all your traffic tickets are paid, all your clothes are expensive, all your headlights and blinkers work, all your house is painted… or they will find some reason to arrest you and/or beat the shit out of you and/or taser you. And if you’re black, then they’ll really fuck you up.

So although many cop movies are classics and highly enjoyable, cops are NOT the discerning, judicious humanitarians they are usually portrayed as. They are trained to be merely apprehenders of suspected perpetrators. They are trained not to judge, not to deliberate, not to execute. Just bring the perp in, so the SYSTEM can do all that. But it’s media like this that makes the cops think – incorrectly – that they are allowed to have discernment and an opinion and a knee on someone’s neck.

In the world of BAD BOYS, we are rooting like zealots for the cops – family man Marcus Bennett (Lawrence) and sex machine Mike Lowrey (Smith) – to track down the drugs and save the dame. And do unimaginably stupid things along the way that only Hollywood can get away with, i.e. married Marcus masquerades as the womanizer Mike Lowery so that witness Julie (Leoni) will trust him with her life. It’s not enough he’s got a badge and gun, now he’s gotta have a slap-happy tool as well. Or how about taking a page from TANGO AND CASH: Marcus is a millionaire who owns that Porsche, but still does The Job so that the other guys on the force won’t think he’s coasting through life. Hey, I got an idea: why not leave the frickin’ force and coast through life?

Watch for Michael Imperioli (soon to be Christopher from THE SOPRANOS), Anna Thomson (the cut whore from UNFORGIVEN), Kevin Corrigan (as a geek scientist, before joining the Seth Rogen clan).

And you don’t really need to watch for Téa Leoni – you can’t miss her – as the screen is seared by her absolute flawless porcelain perfection and neck-crushing thighs, which the producers were canny enough to keep exposed up to the point of vagina. I thank you, Simpson/Bruckheimer! And my bad boy thanks you.

END

Just Another Con.

Nice mullet, Nic!

His pooch hairdo effectively takes attention away from his massively-developed arms and Kirk-body-oiled man-chest.

A prisoner plane, the CON AIR of the title, transporting the biggest bunch of cliched criminals this side of Blockbuster Screenwriting 101, is overrun by said archetypes, led by an exceptionally-maladjusted Malkovich. Elvis comes to the rescue in the form of morose Nicolas Cage (one of the “good” convicts – no rape, murder or listening to Hansen music – therefore the anti-hero), who eventually commandeers the craft and lands it ostentatiously on the Vegas strip amidst traffic.

Written by Scott Rosenberg (with that Blockbuster Screenwriting Guide on his lap): the twisted mastermind (John Malkovich), the quiet serial killer (Steve Buscemi), the Badd Mexx (Danny Trejo), the black guy (Ving Rhames), the gigantor redneck (M.C. Gainey), the gopher (Dave Chappelle), the sick con who is automatically regarded as “wrongfully jailed” simply because he’s sick and a friend of the Anti-Hero (Mykelti Washington), even the obligatory fruity gay guy). Simon West directs with the Michael Bay Handbook on his lap.

The great John Cusack is completely wasted as a Marshall pursuing the hijacked plane and bland Monica Potter has outdone herself – in a career of vapid, unconvincing roles, this is surely the best and blandest in her reel, as Cage’s wife, awaiting him in desperate ambivalence with a daughter who looks like she was cast five minutes before cameras rolled.

Everyone pretends to be really Hard (even the winsome Dave Chappelle!) and there are lots and lots and lots and lots of pretty orange explosions and guys diving in slow motion while shooting big guns, but ultimately this movie is just another excuse to land Nicolas Cage in Las Vegas.

So bad I accidentally grew a mullet.

END

If the movie career tanks, the guns are still firing for the underpant career.

Shooter is Sharp but Misses the Marky.

SHOOTER achieves that balance between action, political skullduggery, pretty orange explosions and Mark Wahlberg’s big guns (and I don’t mean his military sniper rifles), which notches it a cut above most political thrillers of its paranoid ilk – until its pat ending.

Now that’s a shooter!

With his shrapnel-explosive performance in THE DEPARTED, Wahlberg shrugged off the last vestiges of Marky Mark, so from now on – in deference to this bona fide Actor – I respectfully abstain from any allusions to wigga rap, funky bunches and exposed underpant. (But we’ve still got his biceps and obliques – give a reviewer something to work with!)

Wahlberg is patriot Bob Lee Swagger, USMC sharpshooter, able to hit moving targets over a mile away, who leaves the corp disillusioned after a morally-ambiguous mission in Ethiopia goes all hela-snafu. After three idyllic years isolated in panoramic mountains with his big dog, a copy of the 9-11 Commission Report, and web-surfing to “see what propaganda they’re feeding us now,” he receives an unannounced, unwelcome visit from Colonel Isaac Johnson (Danny Glover, lisping badly through his dentures – he really is gettin’ too old for this shit), who wants to hire Swagger for a unique mission – to deter a presidential assassination by scoping out potential methods on how a sharpshooter of Swagger’s caliber may be able to pull it off.

Though we could hear a frame-up coming like an eighteen-wheeler with a bad clutch, our boy Swagger obliviously swaggers into it. If his mind is soft, his body is still hard (calm down, ladies!), and he fields two bullet wounds and a green FBI agent (Michael Peña – last seen under a WORLD TRADE CENTER) to escape narrowly with his life, while a whole government arm deploys to manhunt him when they should be saving hostages in Iran or fixing potholes on my street.

Peña is Nick Memphis, who refuses to accept the “official” FBI version of Swagger’s assassination attempt, due to inadvertently being bitch-slapped by Swagger himself during his escape. His jigsaw construction of the clues leads him to ally with Swagger, who has in turn allied with Sarah (Kate Mara), the girlfriend of a dead fellow soldier. Which kinda annoys for its cliché. Let’s not kid ourselves – when the “ally-with-the-dead-buddy’s-ex” scenario arises in a movie, the girl is ALWAYS single and it ALWAYS leads to panty – I think the first clue might have been when Sarah opens her door to the filthy, terrified, near-death Swagger (who is no more than a mild acquaintance), dressed in nothing but see-through top and undies, not bothering to close her robe. Then we just sit back and wait for Wahlberg to get the guns out… which he does, as she dresses his wounds, which in movie parlance is just another method of foreplay.

Swagger and Memphis uncover the all-purpose “corrupt government plot” behind Swagger’s setup, with quite obvious digs at the George W. administration along the way. (At this juncture – 2007, four years into an unwinnable war after two years in an unwon war – it’s quite easy to dig and get a collective amen.) When Colonel Johnson lisps, “Do we allow America to be ruled by thugs?” Swagger replies, “Some years we do.” Oh, snap!

Directed by Antoine Fuqua, from Jonathan Lemkin‘s screenplay of Stephen Hunter‘s novel, Point of Impact, Swagger’s quest terminates Rade Sherbedgia and Elias Koteas as bad guys along the ladder, Ned Beatty eventually uncovered as the corrupt senator atop the ladder, reveling in the nation’s political audacity and his perceived impunity, “We live in a country where the Secretary of Defense can go on national tv and say it’s about freedom and not about oil.” “The bosses know. We know their bosses know. The problem is in admitting that the leaders know.” With his words, this movie might as well be handing out subpoenas to Rumsfeld, Bush, Rove, Cheney and Wolfowitz.

It is astounding to realize that the definition of Patriot has flip-flopped to someone who DOES own a copy of the 9-11 Commission Report. Not ten years ago, anyone surfing the web, mumbling about propaganda would have been considered treasonous. But Swagger is painted as the reddest, whitest and bluest Patriot in this film – BECAUSE he questions the government. Illustrates how adversely the George W. Klan has affected the United States: that the HERO of a popular movie – not “anti-hero” or “ambiguous villain” – can criticize the administration so loudly and meet with vindication rather than stultification.

But this is where the film meanders into “We Can Dream, Can’t We?” status. The conspiracy reaches to such high government offices that Beatty’s character is right to contemptuously sneer about one sharpshooter not being able to curb it. But after a faux-climax that does not payoff (a grand, panoramic shootout in snowy mountains) and a military hearing which also does not payoff (where Swagger demonstrates his big gun – the one that can counter the earth’s Coriolis effect with its power, not the one that can make ladies drop trou when body-oiled), we know that a REAL climax is coming, one of insensible – yet Eastwood-ian avenger – proportions. (Cue pretty orange explosions.)

It doesn’t seem to matter to the film-makers that Swagger’s methodology is only the corrupt administration’s Decider-like tyranny and Might-Is-Right anarchy turned back on themselves – which therefore does not raise the Hero morally above his opponents but abandons him right amongst them. The paradox is that the parochial W. Bush administration regards only those people who support and behave like them (i.e. morally bankrupt) as the only true Patriots.

So after SHOOTER succinctly sends the disheartening, yet intrinsically correct message that you can’t clean up the insidious corruption amongst elected officials with a big gun – Bob Lee Swagger does just that.

Now that’s a Patriot.

END