Bad Boys - CE (1995)

Will Smith and Martin Lawrence play two hardcore narcotics cops Mike Lowrey (Will Smith) and Marcus Burnett, (Martin Lawrence) who take their jobs and their personal lives to the max every day. However, for these two cops this is no ordinary day. Set in the sultry streets of Miami this dynamic duo bust crime with a kick-arse attitude and a lack of respect for other people’s property. On this occasion they are pitted against a nefarious drug-lord Fouchet (Tcheky Karyo) whose genius plan removed $100 million worth of heroin from within the walls of the Miami Police station evidence lock up room. With Internal Affairs breathing down the precinct’s necks and the FBI looking for a scapegoat Detectives Lowrey and Burnett are assigned to the case. They have 72 hours to reclaim their career drug bust and avoid suspension from the force. When a close personal friend of Mike is found murdered in the process of the investigation the case gets personal as well as potentially awkward. The two stars have to swap their very different identities in order to keep the only eyewitness to the murder (Tea Leoni) safe, sound, and in protective custody. This plays havoc with their personal lives as the role reversal sees Marcus Burnett, a happily married man, put in the shoes of Mike Lowrey who is a renowned womaniser. If the job doesn’t get to them Marcus’s wife will.

Right from the first scene Bad Boys is an action packed bonanza of quick lipped and sure-fire jokes and bullets guaranteed to get the adrenaline running. The tempo for the movie is set as a high paced, intense and hilarious action comedy brought to you by the director of ‘The Rock’ and ‘Armageddon’ and the producers of ‘Top Gun’ and ‘Beverley Hills Cop’. The experience of that team is shown in the continuity of the film and in many ways its success is the powerful onscreen presence of its two main actors Will Smith and Martin Lawrence. They perform remarkably well and play off each other’s snipe comments with such delicacy and poise that it’s a sheer pleasure to watch. The script can be given credit for allowing the actors the flexibility to bring their own attributes to the screen. Sure most of the jokes revolve around Lawrence’s character not getting any, but the light toilet humor gives it a human touch and an extra laugh. Director Michael Bay did an ample job for the money he was allowed to spend on this motion picture, but several scenes could have been better. The action is gripping and the dialogue sharp and rather humorous. All this makes Bad Boys a compelling and entertaining movie, keeping you on the edge of your seat for the full 114 minutes.

The video transfer for Bad Boys was quite a good effort. The colours are well rendered and vibrant. Most of the outdoor scenes in the movie have a deliberate yet delicate yellow overtone which attempts to create a certain mood and depth. The police station has also been filtered, but with a soft blue/grey touch which also adds to the feel of the movie. This works well, and is shown off brilliantly on the DVD. Shadow detail is fantastic, and the general transfer is sharp, crisp and clean. The grain was only very minor, and can be blamed on the smaller budget of the film and the less conventional choice of film used. MPEG artefacts as far as I could tell were very rare and hardly noticeable, aliasing problems were only very minor, and did not detract from the film.

The audio tracks on the DVD are quite good. My only main whinge is that the Region 1 collector’s edition of Bad Boys got the full 448 Kb/s soundtrack. Region 4 was duped with 384 Kb/s sound and a whole heap of unnecessary subtitles that should have been wiped to free up room for the improved soundtrack. Despite this, the audio quality is still superb, the dialogue is clear with no low level noise, and has fine use of the surround channels. A pleasure to hear, especially in the louder, more intense scenes where the subwoofer gets a fair workout. The audio commentary track is clear and informative and the isolated musical score by Mark Mancina is a nice touch, although I still would have preferred the higher bit-rate for the primary soundtrack.

This is the Collectors release of BadBoys, and for its second coming has been re-released and re-hashed with a whole new set of special features including a new, improved, and far sexier black cover.

The audio commentary is included on the special edition release, with director Michael Bay spending most of the movie bitching and moaning about the limited budget. However he still finds the occasional spare moment to discuss the movie, the special effects and how it was made. This being Michael Bays first movie (he has since gone on to ‘The Rock’, ‘Armageddon’, and the soon to be released “Pearl Harbour�) it was quite interesting to hear all the troubles he had, and how he managed to pull off a great movie on a very limited budget (ooh yes, only US $23m). This was one of the few audio commentaries of recent times that I could handle without having to have a call for a half time nap.

The 24 minute featurette ‘The Boom and Bang of Bad Boys’ is a reasonable effort, containing a lot of behind the scenes action as well as some interviews with the cast and crew.

One of the more useless special features on the disc is the ‘Damage Control’ multi-angle interactive special feature. Supposedly an inside guide into how the special effects were done, this little extra was a bit of a disappointment. The multi-angle feature on DVD’s is rarely used, and when done so, it is typically a let down, and unfortunately this Bad Boys featurette falls into that category, despite its potential.

You’ve also got three music video clips ('Shy Guy' by Diana King, 'So Many Ways' by Warren G, 'Five O, Five' by 69Boyz), a photo gallery, talent profiles, and a movie trailer. Most of these additions are pretty ho-hum. The trailer however is a reasonable addition, despite suffering from mild grain and artefacts. It is presented in full screen with Dolby Digital 2.0 sound.

A very tidy effort for a re-released DVD. I was expecting a few more special features, but overall I was quite pleased with the effort that went into this one. The audio and video transfers were of top quality and the movie was as watchable as ever. Bad Boys has a certain magic to it that makes replayed reviewing always entertaining, and with a nice collection of some reasonable special features this disc is a nice addition to any collection.

"So Watcha gunna do?" check out Bad Boys Collectors Edition, you’ll love it.