Bad Boys is a 1995 American action-comedy film directed by Michael Bay in his directorial debut, and produced by Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer, producers of Top Gun and Beverly Hills Cop. The film, starring Martin Lawrence and Will Smith, spawned a 2003 sequel, Bad Boys II.

Plot[link]

Marcus Burnett (Martin Lawrence) and Mike Lowrey (Will Smith) are best friends and detectives in the narcotics division of the Miami-Dade Police Department. One night, $100 million of seized heroin is stolen from a secure police vault. This is a major blow to Burnett and Lowrey, because it was the biggest drug bust of their careers. Internal Affairs thinks that it was an inside job and warns Miami PD that if they do not recover the drugs in five days, the narcotics division will be shut down.

One thief, a former cop named Eddie Domínguez, is found dead at a suite at the Biltmore Hotel, shot to death by his boss, French drug kingpin Fouchet. Fouchet also kills an escort, Maxine "Max" Logan, who was hired by Eddie. It is revealed that she is also one of Lowrey's ex-girlfriends and one of his major informants. The only witness to the crime is Max's best friend Julie Mott (Téa Leoni), who watched the crime from the upper balcony of the suite.

Although she has not met Mike, because of Max's relationship with him Julie will only trust and deal with Lowrey. However, he is away when she contacts the police about the murders, threatening to run if she does not speak to Mike. Captain Conrad Howard (Joe Pantoliano) forces Burnett to impersonate Lowrey to get Julie to cooperate. In order to continue the deception, Burnett and Lowrey switch lives. Burnett tells his family he is going to Cleveland for a case, leaving Mike to stay with them. Burnett then moves into Lowrey's apartment with Julie and her dogs. In Julie's presence, Burnett poses as Lowrey while Mike poses as Burnett.

The investigation proceeds with Lowrey and Burnett calling in on their old informants, including Jojo (Michael Imperioli), a former chemist who now works at a tire store. Later, Julie identifies one of Max's killers, Noah Trafficante, while looking through mug shots. The two cops then head off to Club Hell, one of his known hangouts. Unbeknownst to them, Julie has followed, eager to dish out revenge on Max's killers. Her presence alerts the criminals, resulting in Noah fleeing. After a brief fight and car chase, Noah is killed. The incident is caught on camera by a news helicopter. The subsequent report is later seen by Burnett's family.

Lowrey and Burnett decide to visit Jojo again. After an aggressive and convincing good cop-bad cop act from Lowrey and Burnett, Jojo tells them the location of the chemist who is cutting the stolen drugs. After staking out his house, they follow him to where Fouchet is hiding the drugs. They return to Mike's apartment with Julie, where they are confronted by Marcus' wife who blows their cover, causing Julie to try to run. Fouchet and his gang arrive at Lowrey's apartment and kidnap Julie. Because of this, Internal Affairs reassigns all members of the narcotics division, effectively shutting them down, but Captain Howard delays the order to give Lowrey and Burnett a chance to get Julie and the drugs back.

Burnett, Lowrey and two other members of the Miami P.D. (Sanchez and Ruiz) organize a plan to stop the criminals from killing Julie and selling the drugs. A final shoot-out erupts between the group of cops and the drug dealers at an abandoned air field. Burnett is shot in the leg after saving Julie from Fouchet. Fouchet also shoots Lowrey while escaping the building, which is now on fire, but he is rescued by Burnett and Julie who left to get Lowrey's car.

The cops and Julie chase Fouchet's Shelby Cobra AC 427 in Mike's Porsche 911 Turbo. After Burnett bumps him off the road, Fouchet crashes but manages to escape the wreckage. Attempting to run, Fouchet is shot in the leg by Lowrey. Fouchet, knowing he is beaten, tries to goad Lowrey into killing him, which he almost does as revenge for Max's murder, until Burnett prevents it. While on the ground Fouchet then pulls out a concealed weapon and aims at Burnett, but seeing the reflection on his partner's forehead, Lowrey spins and shoots Fouchet numerous times, killing him.

Later, after Marcus and Mike profess their mutual platonic love for one another and their relief in surviving the gun fight, Marcus handcuffs Julie and Mike's hands together and hobbles away hoping for some much needed "quality time" with his wife. Julie and Mike wonder if he has the keys to the handcuffs.

Cast[link]

• Martin Lawrence as Det. Marcus Burnett
• Will Smith as Det. Mike Lowrey
• Téa Leoni as Julie Mott
• Tchéky Karyo as Fouchet
• Joe Pantoliano as Captain Conrad Howard
• Emmanuel Xuereb as Eddie Dominguez
• Nestor Serrano as Detective Sanchez
• Julio Oscar Mechoso as Detective Ruiz
• Theresa Randle as Theresa Burnett
• John Salley as Fletcher
• Marg Helgenberger as Capt. Alison Sinclair
• Michael Imperioli as Jojo

Production[link]

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2009)

In the film's early stages of development, Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer initially envisioned Dana Carvey and Jon Lovitz in the roles.^[1] When the film was written for Carvey and Lovitz, the original title for Bad Boys was Bulletproof Hearts. Arsenio Hall turned down the role of Mike Lowrey and cites that choice as the worst mistake he has ever made. The role eventually went to Will Smith.

Both Martin Lawrence and Will Smith were starring in their own hit TV shows, Martin and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, when filming Bad Boys. The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air even references the film in an episode. In the season 6, episode 20, called "I Stank Horse", Nicholas "Nikky" Banks tells Will that his parents will not let him watch Bad Boys, to which Will replies, "Oh, whatcha gonna do?"

Improvisation[link]

Director Michael Bay did not like the script and often engaged Smith and Lawrence in discussions about how the dialogue and scenes could improve. He often allowed them to improvise while the cameras were rolling. He secretly told Will to call Lawrence a bitch before the car scene. The whole "two bitches in the sea" was improvised, as was Martin's comment when Téa Leoni called him gay.

The scene in the convenience store, wherein the clerk puts a gun to Burnett and Lowrey's heads and tells them to "Freeze, bitch!", is also improvised. They came up with: "No, you freeze, bitch! Now back up, put the gun down and get me a pack of Tropical Fruit Bubbalicious". "And some Skittles."

According to Michael Bay in the DVD commentary, at the end of the film when Mike (Smith) and Marcus (Lawrence) are recuperating, Mike says "I love you, man." Bay claims that Smith refused to say the line, causing the director and actor to argue back and forth over the line. Bay wanted Smith to say the line as he felt it summed up the friendship between the cops. After their argument had lasted for half of the day's shoot and much of the crew was ready to pack up, a fed up Bay told Smith to do whatever he wanted, after which Smith changed his mind and agreed to say the line.

Reception[link]

The film was commercially successful, grossing $141,407,024 worldwide — $65,807,024 in North America and $75,600,000 in other territories.^[2] However, critical reception was generally mixed. Film review aggregating website Rotten Tomatoes reported that 43% of 41 sampled critics gave the film positive reviews and that it got a rating average of 4.9 out of 10.^[3] Most of the criticisms focused on the fact that despite the production of the film and the ability of the stars, the script did not diverge from the generic plot of a cop-buddy genre film, instead opting for repeated use of formulaic scenes.^[4][5]

Roger Ebert in his video review of the film on At the Movies noted that despite the highly energetic approach of the two lead actors and the visual style of the film, their acting talents were mostly "new wine in old bottles". He illustrated that many of the elements featured in the film including both the plot and characters had been recycled from other films, particularly those from the Lethal Weapon and Beverly Hills Cop series^[5] -- recurrent stock-characters, police detective clichés and over-long action scenes.^[5] In describing the archetypal cop-buddy genre action scene adhered to by the film, Ebert noted "Whenever a movie like this starts to drag, there's always one infallible solution; have a car-chase and then blow something up real good."^[5]

Gene Siskel in his appraisal of the film said that he had lost interest in the film after its introduction due to the very formulaic approach,^[5] and repeated Roger Ebert's criticism that the talents of the lead actors were wasted; suggesting that the production company did not spend significant time producing a script which would be suitable for their talents.^[5]

Soundtrack[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Bad Boys (1995 film)

• Bad Boys at the Internet Movie Database
• Bad Boys at AllRovi
• Bad Boys at Rotten Tomatoes
• Bad Boys at Box Office Mojo