We all at some point make fun of Micheal Bay's career in general. While the man can clearly some competent blockbusters, they tend to not really be all that great or go down in history as greats of their respective genre. Even his biggest successes being the "Transformer" franchise have all been notoriously panned ever since the first film. However, the one franchise that Bay has managed to not only keep relevant but consistently good in some matter are the "Bad Boys" series, with the first not only being his directorial debut, but fans have stated that it's the best film of the franchise and Bay's career as a whole, which is either saying a lot or not at all. Miami PD detectives, Marcus Burnett and Mike Lowrey, are tasked to take back $100 million worth of heroin that was stolen from the police vault within five days before the department gets shut down. When one of Mike's informants gets killed by the man responsible for taking the drugs, a witness, Julie, who managed to survive and knowing of the identity calls the Miami PD, stating that she will only talk to Mike given her friend trusted him. With Mike briefly incapacitated, Marcus is forced to act as his friend and partner in order to make Julie comply and help with the case. However, Marcus is finding it very difficult to act like his smooth, womanizing, playboy best friend, but he and Mike have to keep up with the lie before Julie refuses to cooperate and walks off with a key piece of evidence. The story for the first film in the popular series has been acknowledged not only by fans, but even the filmmakers that it's not really good. It's essentially just a typical police story with a generic villain out to profit from drugs while the detectives are at the end of their deadline to crack the case. We've seen this story done plenty of times before, but the real core of the movie is the chemistry and relationship of the two leads as a lot of improvisation was used throughout the film. While the story itself might not be original, the partnership of Marcus and Mike is refreshing and offers the film's humour in what is really a serious story and film. The first movie has the most serious take for the story and the scale of the action shows as there's not hundreds of explosions or elaborate set-pieces all over the place unlike the sequels. As for the humour, it's really more on the dialogue between the leads, Julie and the police captain rather than some oddball scenarios or repeating gags that the sequels will use to make an attempt to bring out more laughs. Sometimes, simple is better.
The duo of Marcus and Mike, played by Martin Lawrence and Will Smith, are the real heart of the franchise. While they aren't the most original characters in the genre, as Marcus is just the uptight, family man, while Mike is the rich, action-junkie playboy who tends to kill a lot of criminals in his job than necessary, no matter how hard he tries not to, Lawrence and Smith have such fantastic chemistry with each other that it really works. They argue and bicker like a married couple, but they also manage to come and work together like a pair of brothers. While both are great to watch, the highlight in the first movie is really Marcus as the story not only centres around him the most due to his role in the story, but he also offers most of the film's humour. Tea Leoni plays Julie Mott, the witness who saw the man who killed her friend and only demands to cooperate with Mike. While Leoni does manage to work off Lawrence and Smith and offers some good lines, the character of Julie is just not very likeable. Not only does the audience barely care for her friendship with Mike's informant, but she tends to be really annoying with her judgements of "Mike's" behaviour and lifestyle as well as willing get into trouble and danger because she's so obsessed with killing the guy who killed her friend. It's an attempt to make the female character less of a damsel in need, but it really backfire as a result. Fouchet, played by Tchekey Karyo, is a generic French drug kingpin who wants to get rich by selling the repossessed heroin. Karyo does try his best to ham up the character, but the character of Fouchet is just so bland and forgettable. Compared to the other villains of the series, Fouchet is no doubt the worst when it comes to personality and memorability. The side characters however manage to even outshine the key roles of Julie and Fouchet. From Joe Pantoliano's Captain Howard, the hot-headed, cynical captain of the police force, Theresa Randle's Theresa Brunett, the wife of Marcus who hates how her husbands works more than he spends time with family as well as suspecting him of cheating, Saverio Guerro's Chet, the front desk worker of Mike's apartment building who wants to be a cop himself, and Nester Serrano and the late Julio Oscar Mechoso as Detectives Sanchez and Ruiz, the Hispanic duo who constantly poke fun with Marcus and Mike with stereotypical insults, to which the leads also constantly make fun of them in retaliation. There are some smaller characters that I could note such as Mike's informant, Max, and the police secretary, Francine, but their roles are just way too limited and only take up screen-time for a single, critical moment in the movie. Overall, the cast are all enjoyable in their own right by their performances and acting, but of course, Lawrence and Smith are the stars of the show.
Micheal Bay is known for his overuse of flashy editing and explosive action and set-pieces, but in his first feature film, all of these tropes were not only premature, but unable to occur due to the film's very limited budget. While the other films of the series try to have as much action set-pieces as possible, the first film tries to space it out and focus on being a movie first. Even though the story isn't anything impressive, Bay's directing showcased his future talent even in a small-scale degree. Although there is some literal flashy editing that we come to expect from Bay, it's very dialled back from his more notable works and the editing never gets too choppy. Scenes actually play out as they intend to and the pacing is actually very well-handled. The usual setting of Miami is nicely captured with Howard Atherton's cinematography with plenty of sweeping, establishing shots and extreme close-ups on people's faces. The interior sets are also nicely presented with plenty of character thrown in. From Mike's luxury apartment that looks nothing anyone can buy on a cop's salary, the police headquarters that's constantly moving about and active as people's jobs are on the line with a five day time limit, Marcus's quaint family home that's just the right size and comfortable for a family of five, the gothic, grunge rock night club, Club Hell, and Fouchet's secret base of an abandoned ship in the Miami port being used to house a very ineffective drug lab. Despite the typical story and genre beats, the film just oozes with character both by the actors and the filmmaking. The opening credits is tied together with the city of Miami in sunset and Mark Mancina's energizing score, which proves to be his best non-Disney collaboration. While not every aspect of the score is great as there are plenty of beats that sound very ripped out of the "Lethal Weapon" franchise, the main theme and action beats make his contributions very welcome and the memorable music and licensed songs remains one of the best modern action soundtracks to date. The last thing to note will be the action, which is not exactly the film's strength compared to the sequels. Don't get me wrong, there are some nice action scenes, namely the fight inside Club Hell, the chase scene where Mike has to run after Fouchet after he kidnaps Julie, and the climatic shoot-out in the airfield that has some memorable kills and has the trademark of Bay's explosions. However, some of the action scenes are just really generic shoot-outs or car chases, which while directed fine, are just not that memorable. Even if the sequels overuse the action, it's all memorable at the very least and each set-piece is engaging to watch till the end. While there's still some amateur work at times, Bay at the very least knows how to make a film with a small budget and not being able to hide his filmmaking skills, good or bad, with fast editing or extended action sequences.
"Bad Boys" is perhaps Bay's best film and a strong first installment to an overall very good series. While there are some issues such as the very generic story, Julie as a character is annoying and idiotic at times, Fouchet is an extremely boring villain, there's some lazy, flashy editing from time to time, some of Mancina's score sounds very much like "Lethal Weapon", and some of the action scenes are pretty standard and generic. With that said, it's easy to see why some people feel that this is still the best of the series. The tone takes itself the most grounded while offering some great dialogue-based humour, Lawrence and Smith as Marcus and Mike are a simply fantastic action-comedic duo, the cast of side characters help play off of the leads with their own loveable personality and charisma from their actors, the interior sets are not only well-detailed, but are just fuelled by character and subtle details, Miami is wonderfully shot by Atherton's camerawork with some iconic imagery from the trademark sweeping shot of the leads to the city's landmarks, Mancina's score as a whole has some very awesome music beats and licensed songs that fit the movie and its personality, there are some engaging action sequences here and there, and Bay's directing shows that he knows how to make an actual movie that's not stuffed with explosions, action set-pieces, and crazy editing throughout the entire film. I find that all of the "Bad Boys" films have their own strengths and weaknesses and one person or fan will have a movie from the trilogy that suits them the most. While I, for one, don't think that this is the best film of the franchise due to some of the weaker aspects, I will agree that it's at the very least, Bay's best film of his career.
Verdict: 7/10. An overall solid action-comedy that began a surprisingly memorable franchise that's all thanks to Micheal Bay. Watch if you haven't seen it or if you only became a fan from this year's "Bad Boys For Life".
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