Bad Boys: Ride or Die

When their late police captain suddenly gets linked to drug cartels, in order to clear his name, everyone’s favorite pair of wisecracking odd couple Miami cops, Mike Lowrey and Marcus Burnett, embark on yet another dangerous mission the only way they know how (…by shooting lots of people).

This is a loud and ridiculously unapologetic throwback to the Michael Bay-era of buddy cop action films from the very first moment. It is a film that doesn’t care if seemingly every obstacle the characters face is solved by them diving to the side in slow motion while firing guns two-fistedly. I want this to be clear, Bad Boys: Ride or Die is exactly what you would assume it to be, so the question isn’t whether it’s good or bad, it‘s… do you like that kind of shit?

Because if you don’t, don’t bother.

So...

Mike Lowrey and Marcus Burnett are a pair of hot rodding super cops, loose cannons who get results, and they’ve been partners for a long time… a long time. The first Bad Boys was released in 1995. That’s nearly 30 years ago. That’s a long time. Anyway, Mike and Marcus are still cops, still partners, and still bad boys for life, but in that time, a lot of other stuff has changed in their lives too. For instance, Mike, the perennial bachelor, the brash and hot-headed one, the one with all the smooth Big Willie style, is finally getting married, if you can believe that. And as for Marcus, the uncool one, the neurotic one, the overly uptight and cautious one, the family man, while he was dancing his ass off at the wedding reception, he had a heart attack. He survives, but that heart attack led to Marcus having a brush with the afterlife, and when he comes out of it, he’s a little bit wonky, a little bit... off, but in a funny new age-y “I can’t die because I saw God” kind of way.

This dangerous new sense of invulnerability upsets the long-time dynamics of Miami PD’s number one producer of bullet-riddled corpses (and presumably the main cause of most of the city’s collateral damages, as well as their insurance pay-outs), as Marcus starts taking ludicrous risks, all while Mike, a man-child who is feeling a looming sense of his own mortality now that he’s married, starts to have panic attacks in the middle of their many, many gunfights, so inconvenient! Also, after coming out of his coma, Marcus now believes that he and Mike are actually soul mates who have been reincarnated together over and over again.

It becomes a running gag.

Unfortunately for these two mass-murdering agents of the State, this time, the super evil bad guys are out for more than just blood and money, they’re out to ruin legacies too, something that is a very important to men who are as old as these two are, and that means… a frame up! Their beloved old Captain, who was killed in the last Bad Boy film, or maybe it was the one before, who can remember, is suddenly posthumously framed for being on the take with “the cartel.” As a result, now this pair of best buddies and legally-empowered murder machines need to clear their dead friend’s name, which means driving really fast through heavily populated areas, and shooting literally everything that moves, often in slow motion. 

But unfortunately, this leads to the pair of “good” cops becoming outlaws! Bad boys for realsies! Because it turns out… brace yourself for this shit, people… the whole time, the real bad guys are actually their fellow cops!

Gasp! What!?!

Somebody get my fainting couch!

Now what are Mike and Marcus gonna do? What they gonna do? What they gonna do now that the cops are coming for them too? 

This might shock you, but the answer is still… driving really fast through heavily populated areas, and shooting literally everything that moves, all while firing their guns two-fistedly, and maybe even while jumping away from an explosion or two as well, which also happens in slow motion. It also means teaming up with Mike’s bastard of a son—a guy who truly is a bastard, both because he was born out of wedlock, and also because he’s just generally kind of a bastard—and they need to do this because of his criminal connections, I think, despite the fact that he was the surprise bad guy from the last Bad Boys film, or maybe it was the one before, who can remember, and was also the one who killed their beloved, now dead, Captain. This guy, his name is Armando, is a twisted evil mirror version of his father, the smooth-talking bad ass killer cop Mike Lowery, who Armando is very butthurt at because Mike never played catch with him as a child, so as a result, he was forced to become an assassin.

There but for the grace of God, amirite?

Once all of that set-up is done, it looks like it’s finally time for shit to get real! And after that… it’s a myriad of quips! Pithy witticisms galore! A veritable hurricane of banter, bullets, and high speed driving, not to mention piles of bodies, piles and piles of bodies, as the common people scatter, screaming for their lives!

But will this disparate gang of bon mot-bringing banditos still be able to murder as effectively and with such abandon, despite the fact that they no longer have their shiny badges? Will they all be able to set aside their cacophony of differences and personal issues in time to clear everyone’s name? Will Mike get his groove back? Will the prophecy Marcus saw in his vision, while he was in a coma, come true?

SPOILERS… yes.

Plus, Marcus finally learns to respect his long-suffering son-in-law, after he watches via his home security app while the young man kills a good dozen or so heavily-armed intruders. Paging Dr. Freud, looks like somebody married their father... Seriously though, is there anything that brings a family together faster than dragging a bunch of bloody corpses out of your living room, your dining room, and your kitchen? Not in my experience.

Movies like this didn't use to seem so ridiculous, right?

I can't remember.

So, I’m sure there will be people out there who will see how successful this particular film was—it’s currently the ninth highest grossing domestic film of the year, less than $23 thousand behind Kung Fu Panda 4—and they’ll go: “See? This is what the people want! The fact that Hollywood is doing so many superhero films is where they went wrong! They need to get back to making more movies like this, and not so many superhero films!” And the main reason they’ll do this, is because the mere existence of superhero movies, as well as the fact that they are generally pretty successful, really chaps the asses of a certain subset of dipshits and douchebags out there.

But the thing is… Bad Boys: Ride or Die is a superhero film.

It’s filled to the brim with a bunch of ridiculous goons doing ridiculous stunts, saying ridiculous stuff, and all while dressed in ridiculous outfits. True, they aren’t wearing capes and tights, but much like in the superhero movies in the late 90s and early aughts, the heroes are wearing carefully coordinated outfits that inform on their personalities, all while the bad guys wear US army style keffiyehs, Eddie Hardy dragon jeans, tacti-cool tshirts, and thorny tribal tattoos. Don't believe me? Do any of you care to hazard a guess as to what the “edgy” hacker girl looks like? If you guessed “a shaved head, a nose ring, and thorny tribal tattoos,” well, then congratulations, my friend, because you’re obviously a bad boy for life too. And that’s before we even get to the fact that this film’s plot hinges on a prophecy that requires The One to be exactly where he is supposed to be, to do exactly what he is supposed to do, in order for the "good guys" to win.

Besides, everyone knows, all superheroes are just super cops in fancy outfits.

The prison fight in the weight yard was pretty cool though. Also, side note… did you know windshield wiper fluid can be flammable if it’s not diluted? I did not know that, but apparently it’s true. I don’t think I’m alone here is saying that this seems like a design flaw, right?

In the end, is the film good? I mean, no, not really, not if you’re looking for anything more than some nice Miami d-bag style and cool explosions during the Golden Hour in South Florida, but this really shouldn’t surprise anyone. The film is what it is, which should be obvious to you before you even hit play, and it makes no apologies for it. That doesn’t excuse any of it, of course, but let’s be honest, any film that still cites 9/11 as a plot point is well past its sell-by date, and only a fool would pick up an obviously rotten apple, take a bite out of it, and then be mad, like it was anyone else’s fault. This is basically just a really simple movie, one where all of its puzzle pieces fit together nicely, but the thing is... it’s a 25 piece puzzle, right, it’s not a 2500 piece puzzle, so everything that happens here is going to be really obvious as it goes about slotting those pieces together.

but also... while there may once been a time when movies like this didn’t seem as ridiculous, that time passed long ago, much like any of the spry je nais se quoi that our two action heroes may have once had. In a nutshell this is a film probably best summed up by The Boss: it's nothing but a couple of old men "just sitting back, trying to recapture… a little of the glory, yeah”

And not quite pulling it off.

Still, despite having clearly lost a couple of steps, and still being 100% committed to a completely out-of-date style, if you still like this kind of stuff, and you’re also a dad who loves dad-fiction, or at least, close enough to being Dad-like, then you’ll probably enjoy this movie.

It's fine.