BAD BOYS FOR LIFE (2020) FILM REVIEW

***

15, 123 Mins

Will Smith and Martin Lawrence banter up the bromance in this flippantly fun actioner.

It's worth noting I have a soft spot for buddy movies. Specifically those featuring the age-old interplay of good cop/bad cop. The first two 'Bad Boys' (1995-2003) movies should've been right up my street therefore, but I was bored brain-dead by Michael Bay's leering camerawork, rapid-fire cuts and overload of explosions.

For 'Bad Boys For Life' (2020) - the 17 year belated sequel that reunites Will Smith's maverick detective Mike Lowery with Martin Lawrence's incompetently by-the-book Marcus Burnett - Bay has thankfully departed the directorial chair and made way for Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah. A duo who seem to better understand the balance between action and storytelling. There's still an abundance of "Bayisms" in the opening scenes such as overheated Miami colour schemes, bodily ogglings over "hot chicks" and a cameo from the bete noire of blockbusters himself. Yet there's also the odd dollop of heart and humour served up by Smith and Lawrence's irresistable chemistry.

The plot is refreshingly simple with the federal double act teaming up to take down a Mexican cartel who's killing cops. Again, the use of tasteless violence when real-world American Officers are being gunned down should set alarm bells ringing, but such moral dilemmas merely disappear in the aether thanks to the banterous bromance at hand.

After stinkers like 'Suicide Squad' (2016), 'After Earth' (2013) and 'Gemini Man' (2019), 'Bad Boys For Life'  allows Smith to flex his boisterous, big-smiled enthusiasm which has been deeply misery-fied in recent efforts. He even gets the most emotional moment in a cuddly bit of father-son bonding.

I've never been a Martin Lawrence fan if the torturous 'Big Momma' movies say anything, but his propensity for screaming lines at unearthly high decibles actually plays to his advantage here. He's the perfect bufoon to Smithie's shredded hunk.

The action, meanwhile, is refreshingly comprehensible - not sliced up by interminable editing or aesthetically looking as though a chip pan has caught fire. It's all very silly and very inconsequential, but, if you like your action movies big and brash, this is for you.

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