Quartile rating: 6/10 · 1 rating
Marcus Burnett is a henpecked family man. Mike Lowrey is a footloose and fancy free ladies' man. Both Miami policemen, they have 72 hours to reclaim a consignment of drugs stolen from under their station's nose. To complicate matters, in order to get the assistance of the sole witness to a murder, they have to pretend to be each other.
Bad Boys is a solid but fairly formulaic buddy-cop action comedy that hits its marks without doing much new. The plot—stolen drugs, 72-hour deadline, mistaken identity twist—is functional but derivative of the genre. Will Smith and Martin Lawrence have genuine chemistry and carry the film with charisma, elevating the material above its script. Michael Bay's direction brings kinetic energy and slick Miami visuals, though it's more competent blockbuster craft than distinctive cinematography. Novelty is low: it's a well-executed but thoroughly conventional buddy-cop template with little to distinguish it conceptually. The ending delivers satisfying action spectacle but nothing surprising.