Bad Company (2002)

2484-3There’s a problem I have with this movie that I think the filmmakers over at Jerry Bruckheimer’s company can never fix: Keeping this movie from being made. If I could turn back time and prevent this disaster, it would make my life a lot more complete. Folks, this is probably one of the worst films I have ever seen in years, a travesty of filmmaking that drags on for two hours like Chinese water torture and never eases up. The screenplay by Jason Richman and Michael Browning is ridiculous because we have a spy, who is good, he dies, and what? You mean he has a twin brother? How convenient.

Chris Rock tries his best to flex his comedic muscles but fails miserably as he tries to deliver these awful, awful one liners that are not only terrible, but you can see in his face that even he doesn’t like the jokes. Watching him give these awful wise-cracks is like watching a dying animal and you want to put him out of his misery. He serves one cringe inducing joke after another and never stops, making this movie seem all the more awful. He constantly fumbles and jokes his way through the movie without a laugh to spare, serving as the comic relief to a movie that might have been good had it not been served with such a poor actor.

Chris Rock’s character Jake is the quintessential African-American stereotyped character in this movie: he’s poor, uneducated, wears a lot of gold chains and is a con man. Not to mention, he shoves all these hip hop references down our throats expecting a chuckle, but all he gets is dead silence. This movie is also poor in plot with its cliché spy movie storyline that I’ve seen done millions of times in much better movies. Anthony Hopkins, the poor man, sleepwalks through this movie often looking tired and bored as he is forced to perform these drawn out tired monologues and terrible stunts while acting alongside Rock who can barely act.

The movie also has these caricature villains who serve no purpose other than to scowl, look dirty, and talk about us “Filthy Americans” every second in the movie. We get it, you’re mean and intimidating, can we move on, now? Joel Schumacher, a pretentious and overblown filmmaker tries his best to make up for the terrible script through these dramatic camera and action shots that just look gloomy and pathetic. He couldn’t possibly make up for this embarrassment, no one could. Two hours of my life I will never be able to get back, this is an awful spy movie with a terrible script, a terrible plot, and an awful leading man who should stick to comedy. Schumacher, I’d flip you the bird if you could see me.