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Bad Company Review By Shawn McKenzie 06/08/2002 Here we have yet another movie that was pushed back because of its terrorist theme. Do I care? No. The thing I do care about is if Bad Company is any good. After The Sum of All Fears made such a big fuss the last couple of weeks, I just stopped caring whether or not I thought movies would disturb the general public. I just wanted to get back to reviewing movies the way we did before 9/11...on their merits alone. Is this movie any good? Well...it's okay. It is pretty violent for a PG-13 rated movie, and I really thought they should have just gone for an R-rated format, but oh well. To get that, they would have to make the violence Sam Peckinpaugh style (graphically violent, very bloody.) Now that I think about it, that wouldn't work either. maybe there should be a rating in between PG-13 and R. I'll worry about that later. This is basically what Bad Company is about: Anthony Hopkins plays Gaylord Oakes, an experienced agent for the CIA who is on an undercover mission to buy a nuclear bomb from a Russian mafioso (played by Peter Stormare.) His partner in the mission, Kevin Pope (played by Chris Rock), is killed by a group of Islamic Fundamentalists trying to get the bomb too. They don't know that they killed Pope, so Oakes and his team enlist Pope's twin brother, Jake Hayes (also played by Chris Rock) to fill in. Wackiness ensues. Director Joel Schumacher had almost redeemed himself again with 2000's Tigerland. Schumacher is best known as the man who messed up the Batman franchise. Bad Company isn't exactly Batman & Robin, but it isn't Tigerland or even The Lost Boys (my favorite Schumacher flick, with Falling Down a close second.) I hate to judge a director by his past films, but the man has made some good ones (pre-Batman), so with Tigerland, I know he still has it in him. Bad Company makes him look shaky in the attempt to make a comeback. I want to take up an issue about wasted characters. Garcelle Beauvais plays a former girlfriend of Kevin's alter ego (you'll have to see the movie to know exactly what I mean.) She is in the movie for about ten minutes, shows off lots of skin, and gets in a dangerous situation with Rock. Then she is never heard from again! That frustrates me when a whole character could be taken out of a movie and it wouldn't alter the plot one iota! I did like the shower scene though... One other thing. Why is Air Supply always picked on? Why are they always the symbol for depression? I love Air Supply! Sorry, I had to get that out. (I know, I'm really white.) I did laugh a couple of times (especially a joke Rock tells about how a woman could track down Saddam Hussein better than the CIA), but overall, this was a ho-hum movie. I wouldn't recommend seeing an evening show of this movie, maybe a matinee (which is what I saw.) This is only if you haven't seen any of the other great movies out in theaters now or if there isn't anything else on TV...so go see it! (Or not...) Update: I really thought about it, and realized that I gave this movie too high of a praise with three cameras. Instead, I give it:
Get the original soundtrack with the Ali featuring St. Lunatics' song "Breathe In, Breathe Out" and Jagged Edge's cover of Air Supply's "All Out of Love": Buy this CD at
Ratings System:
SEE THIS MOVIE!
Catch this movie at the theater if you can...
Wait until it comes out on video...
Wait until it plays on HBO, Showtime, Starz, etc...
Demand your money back, even if you saw it for free! |
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