Creamy, warm, chicken noodle soup salted to perfection with soft, slurpy noodles and juicy chunks of chicken. A pristinely toasted grilled cheese sandwich, with the bread browned just right with butter from top to bottom and melted American cheese that strings endlessly as you pull it apart and prepare for the crunch as you take a bite. Gooey mac and cheese that makes sloshing sounds as you dig your spoon into it for that first mouthful. Comfort foods take us back to specific, nostalgic moments in time, often calling to mind the person who made them, a grandmother you miss, a partner whose smile and touch make your day, a mother who made you. This feeling of solace and familiarity are what came to mind when thinking of how to describe the latest entry in the Bad Boys franchise as I watched it in theaters.
Bad Boys: Ride or Die once again puts us alongside wisecracking Miami detectives Mike Lowrey (Will Smith) and Marcus Burnett (Martin Lawrence) as the Lowrey prepares for life as a married man. His nuptials are soon turned sour when their late police captain Howard (Joe Pantoliano) is posthumously linked to drug cartels. The two detectives must then go on an off-the-books mission to clear his name.
The comedic duo of Smith and Lawrence that have led the franchise for nearly 30 years are here again offering what its fans have come to expect; banter between stable and irritable family man Burnett and the playboy, hothead that is the legendary Lowrey and explosive car chases and gun fights between the cops and bad guys. Ride or Die builds upon Lowrey’s trajectory however as he continues to move into a more family oriented phase of his life as he gets married to his former therapist Christine (Melanie Liburd) and deepens his relationship with his son Armando (Jacob Scipio). It is through Lowrey’s arc that some substance is injected into the action comedy as he struggles to handle PTSD from all of the tragic deaths he has experienced through the life of the series and the guilt he harbors for feeling responsible for all of it. His journey provides both levity and the film’s emotionality that breaks up the thrills and generates audience investment in the story, but is not so substantive that it elevates it past what we’ve come to expect from a Bad Boys movie and into a more serious, cinephilic aire.
Indeed, what makes this film go and will make or break it for the audience, is your attachment to the characters and the style that these movies have come to be known for. Like the comfort foods you enjoy, what brings someone to Bad Boys: Ride or Die is familiarity. The jokes and chemistry present are what we’ve seen from Smith and Lawrence and the action scenes are elaborate and bombastic, but in a way that we know well. Directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah do try to add some new visual wrinkles with camera angles shot directly from the perspective of the characters during shootouts that required the actors themselves to operate the cameras while acting simultaneously, resulting in some inventive shaky cam action. Aside from that however, it’s the explosions, chase scenes, and fights you’d expect. If you’re a fan of the franchise, it’s like returning home and enjoying something reliable, tried and true. Old characters make enjoyable appearances, most notably Reggie (Dennis McDonald), the young man from Bad Boys II turned Burnett’s son-in-law who has two crowd pleasing moments that made my screening audience explode with cheers that drowned out the movie audio for stretches.
And it’s in Reggie’s appearances and the subsequent audience reactions that this review of the film is best encapsulated. A familiar face that we’ve watch grow over multiple decades making a return to our lives in a satisfying way that symbolizes our lives have developed steadily in a positive direction with things turning out ok. Despite the chaos that our world seems to be in, we can go back to a place we’ve known for years, see people that we’ve known just as long, and see that they’ve turned out well and are just as good as when we saw them last, providing comfort and something we can be sure about in unassured times. The familiar provides comfort and dredges up good memories and Bad Boys: Ride or Die is a great night out at the movies when you just want to experience something sure for the night.
Image: Columbia Pictures
