Bad Company (2002)
Grade: C
Cast: Chris Rock, Anthony Hopkins, Kerry Washington, Garcelle Beauvais, Matthew Marsh
Director: Joel Schumacher
Rated PG-13 for intense sequenses of violent action, some sensuality and language


“If it moves, it dies…”

Such is a command in "Bad Company", one of the most clichéd movies of the year, and I couldn’t help but think to myself that the line was stating producer Jerry Bruckheimer’s personal motto. The only very good movie he has ever produced was 2001’s "Black Hawk Down", but even that was one of the most pervasively violent war movies I’ve ever seen. "Bad Company" is no different, with its constant shoot-‘em-up action sequences, but the frequent action lacks any urgency or bite. In all action films, we know the good guy will win, but in the good ones, we wonder how, and the action interests us. "Bad Company" is not a good one. Anthony Hopkins—tell me how to get whatever you were smoking when you accepted this script.

Chris Rock, the gifted comic who keeps getting stuck in crappy movies, plays Jake Hayes, a street hustler who is one day called upon by the CIA. Apparently, the twin brother he never knew he had was killed during a mission that the CIA assigned him and badly needs to get finished. So Jake (identical to his brother, of course) is taken into training so he can talk like a member of the CIA and…well, like his brother. All of this makes little sense because, if these bad guys already killed Jake’s brother, why would they accept him alive all of a sudden? Now, I must give credit—the film may indeed answer this question, but I missed it because 1), My attention was wondering because of my boredom, and/or 2), The action sequences—and the rest of the film for that matter—are shot in a dreary, dull dark blue-gray tint that immediately evokes a yearning for a director not named Joel Schumacher, because it’s hard to see what’s going on.

The movie is primarily action-oriented (it even has moments of drama!) but the few things about it that work come from Chris Rock’s one-liners. A lot of them were probably ad-libbed, knowing how inherently funny Rock can be. But the problem is, he’s being shot at by millions of people and hunted for by millions of terrorists, and yet he still has the time to think up comedy routines for an audience who doesn’t seem to care (Hopkins is strangely straight—I knew he wouldn’t be a source of comedy, but I didn’t expect this performance, where he’s about as interesting to watch as a tube of toothpaste). I know this may sound like a stupid complaint, because I have enjoyed plenty of action comedies before, but here it just seems obvious. I know if I were in Rock’s position, I would be scared to death, and de-humorized, and this is from someone who often tries to be humorous in real life.

Of course, none of this would be an issue if "Bad Company" were a lot funnier, and A LOT more exciting. It is only sometimes funny, and in a distracting way, and it is never exciting. As much as I love Chris Rock, he needs a new agent. The script calls for some brief moments for him to actually *act*, and it doesn’t work. That isn’t the script’s only misstep though—it disposes of characters the way theaters have been disposing of this movie (sorry, Rock, you can’t open a movie yet), and plausibility is about as important as directorial clarity.

There are a lot of stupid things about "Bad Company" that hide the good things about it. But the absolute stupidest thing it did was put the word ‘bad’ in the title. What a way to make a critic’s job easy—some would probably go out of the way to dislike the movie, if only for the comment about how “bad” it is. To put a negative adjective in a film’s title, the producers better be damn sure they have a masterpiece. I’m not going to make any remarks about dropping the last word of the title to describe the movie, but let’s just say the people at Touchstone pictures weren’t exactly thinking straight.


-Alex, July 2002