BAD COMPANY - A Narada Film Review
GABRIEL MACHT as
Agent Seale
and BROOK SMITH as
Agent Swanson.

CHRIS ROCK as Hayes, and
GARCELLE BEAUVAIS-NILON
as Nicole.

Adrik Vas played by
PETER STORMARE, has
an A-bomb for sale.

Bad Company - Jerry Bruckheimer, Producer ,    Joel Schumacher, Director Reviewed 20 June 2002           The teaming up of Director Joel Schumacher (The Client, A Time To Kill) with Producer Jerry Bruckheimer (Pearl Harbor, Black Hawk Down) should have produced one of the year's blockbusters.   Instead, we got a rerun of every CIA thriller ever made.    --And yet ANOTHER movie whose prime directive seems to have been, "Give Chris Rock a platform for his latest batch of one-liners".  Not that Rock , as Hayes , isn't funny this time around - but I wanted to go to a movie, not a Comedy Club.
             Bruckheimer / Schumacher seem bent on ignoring every "no-no" in the genre.   Twins?    Please, Gentlemen,....this went out with Jerry Lewis movies, and has proven the death-knell for every actor who has ever used it.   In this instance, of course, Rock has nothing to lose; no one will mistake him for an actor.    However, he IS big box-office.    -Confirming that if Hollywood has to choose between the cinematic arts and the box-office, they will follow the money every time.
             Instead of a plot, we have a bomb about to go off.   And guess what?   The bomb's makers were thoughtful enough to install a large digital display which conveniently shows the count-down-to-destruction.  Lets think about this for a moment - we have an explosive device which is obviously designed for one-time-only use, and the people intent on detonating it will at least attempt to be as far from it as possible when it goes off.    Can someone, then, please tell me why the bomb needs a count-down clock?    I can remember watching this schlock in Superman "serials" 50 years ago - this is the stuff of mossbacked cliff-hangers, not 21st century cinema.
             Anthony Hopkins ( Agent Oakes ) is convincing as the hardened CIA agent with a heart, and Peter Stormare ( Adrik Vas ) is as convincing as the nuke-peddling Russkie.    Garcelle Beauvais-Nilon ( Nicole ) is the movie's T&A entree, who works for CNN and is able to walk back and forth through the thickest CIA security - and the CIA agents don't even seem to have a problem with that..... Ho, Boy.
        Enduring Line Or Phrase: "So, if I paid taxes, this is where it would go..... "

Reviewed by Narada for Bangkok Eyes - 20 June 2002

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