Bad Boys for Life Movie Review

Their mantra is, ‘We ride together. We die together. Bad Boys for Life.’ The third installment of the ‘Bad Boys’ franchise, and by no means the last, was quite a welcoming surprise to me.

I rather enjoyed the movie. Believing I’d feel otherwise, I watched it with a bit of apprehension. The two actors, Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, who played partners Mike and Marcus twice in the past meeting, are coming together again as Bad Boys?? Come on. They’re headed toward retirement age and this just isn’t a story-line that anyone can pull off. Not even these two who we all adore. It’s unrealistic to ask an audience to believe they’re going to be in the kind of shape it would take to beat up the bad guys. Well, they sort of work around that. They don’t proclaim to be in shape. Directors Adil El Arbi & Bilall Fallah aren’t Michael Bay and have an approach to the film that will ambush you. They don’t run from the fact that their actors are older. They embrace it.

When we catch up to the boys, we find them again in Mike’s sports car, racing toward a scene… but not to the scene of a crime. Rather, they’re racing to get Marcus to the birth of his first grandchild on time. Marcus is his usual, grumbling self. Complaining about everything Mike does. Mike is still single, a bit wild but Marcus aims to calm him down. Now, add into the mix that Marcus just become a grandpa and wants to retire but someone wants to take Mike out of the picture for good and you have the premise of ‘Bad Boys for Life.’ Marcus and Mike are about to race one another, to prove who still has it, until a menacing black motorcycle comes out of nowhere and shoots Mike several times. He’s transported to the hospital. Marcus is devastated.

A judge, a forensic investigator and several others in law enforcement are also gunned down but they’re not so lucky. At least Mike improves. He then gets involved with a tactical group called Ammo who’ve assembled to try and stop whomever it is that has gone on a cop-killing spree. This lends itself to some stylish action scenes but also some so far-fetched that it’s hard to suspend the disbelief we’re always asked to in cases such as this but the film is entertaining enough to shuffle the bad into the back of our minds and enjoy what’s good about it. Religion is also mentioned a lot, strangely enough, from praying to God to mentions of Buddha, witches and warlocks. I found those acknowledgments to be quite unique in a big action movie.

Mike gets Marcus to help him look for the killers. I just so happen that one of them is someone Mike knows from the past. She’s a vindictive witch (yes… witch) who holds Mike responsible for the death of her husband. She escapes prison and with the aid of her son and her late husbands’ money, forms a gang to make Mike pay. This woman is very strange and the entire situation with her and her thugs gives Martin Lawrence a real chance to shine. His brand of comedy goes perfectly with the script that makes fun of him for not wearing his glasses, making fun of Mike for not being careful sexually and being called by a blister to poke it. The movie isn’t the first ‘Bad Boys’ but it sure is better than the second film.

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