After CIA agent Kevin Pope (Chris Rock) is killed by terrorist Dragan Adanic (Matthew Marsh) while protecting partner and mentor Agent Oakes (Anthony Hopkins)., the team is left without a contact to black market arms dealer Adrik Vas (Peter Stormare) to reacquire a stolen nuclear weapon. With their options limited, the team makes contact with Pope's long lost identical twin brother, Jake Hayes (Chris Rock), whom not even Pope was aware existed. As Jake scrounges his way through New Jersey hustling tickets and chess matches while dealing with a potential break-up with girlfriend Julie Benson (Kerry Washington), Jake is recruited by the CIA to try and act like Pope as the team work to acquire the nuke before Dragan can.
Bad Company is a 2002 action-comedy produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and directed by Joel Schumacher. Initially announced under the title of Black Sheep, the high concept action comedy was something of an experiment by Bruckheimer to see if Rock could be turned into a leading man much as Bruckheimer had done for Eddie Murphy with Beverly Hills Cop or Will Smith and Martin Lawrence with Bad Boys. Initially primed as a release around Christmas 2001, Bad Company found itself the subject of bad timing as with 9/11 several entertainment projects across movies, TV, video games and etc. Were re-assessed with many delayed, altered, or even outright cancelled (True Lies 2 being a notable example). Bad Company wound up being delayed until April of 2002 and Disney obviously knew it wasn't going to make its money back and dumped it to theaters in the wake of holdovers The Sum of All Fears and Star Wars: Attack of the Clones and the new release of The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. Critical reception tended to run negative with many lamenting the formulaic nature of the film and the lack of chemistry between the leads. Bad Company is an example of the most bland and workman like products that come off Bruckheimer's conveyer belt.
Starting off on a major issue with the film, Chris Rock is hopelessly miscast in the roles of Kevin Pope and Jake Hayes and isn't helped by a terrible and inconsistent script that alters between making Jake a genius and an idiot when the situation calls for it. While Rock had showcased his comedic prowess in some notable supporting roles in Lethal Weapon 4, Dogma, Nurse Betty, and Osmosis Jones along with his prolific television work, Rock doesn't have a lot of range beyond his motormouthed street smart persona which makes it hard for him to blend into roles where he's a refined and sophistic CIA agent. You'd think given that the other role Rock plays in the film, Jake, is a streetwise chessmaster and hustler that would work better for Rock, but more often than not the script relies on him mugging and screaming lines in a manner that's more fitted to Martin Lawrence than Chris Rock (probably why there's a myth this movie started as an aborted sequel to Blue Streak). Anthony Hopkins has no chemistry with Rock in the mentor/mentee relationship that's clearly striving to be something like the Will Smith/Tommy Lee Jones pairing from Men in Black but lacks any of the heart or character that made that work and the villains are so stock that were it not for the fact they were attacking New York City no one would remember anything about them.
Bad Company is truth in advertising in that spending time with this film makes you re-evaluate several life decisions that brought you to this point. Chris Rock is wasted and miscast in a role that doesn't play to his strengths, Anthony Hopkins phones it in with barely any investment, and the villains have no real definition or menace beyond being lazy plot devices.
Bad Company is a 2002 action-comedy produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and directed by Joel Schumacher. Initially announced under the title of Black Sheep, the high concept action comedy was something of an experiment by Bruckheimer to see if Rock could be turned into a leading man much as Bruckheimer had done for Eddie Murphy with Beverly Hills Cop or Will Smith and Martin Lawrence with Bad Boys. Initially primed as a release around Christmas 2001, Bad Company found itself the subject of bad timing as with 9/11 several entertainment projects across movies, TV, video games and etc. Were re-assessed with many delayed, altered, or even outright cancelled (True Lies 2 being a notable example). Bad Company wound up being delayed until April of 2002 and Disney obviously knew it wasn't going to make its money back and dumped it to theaters in the wake of holdovers The Sum of All Fears and Star Wars: Attack of the Clones and the new release of The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. Critical reception tended to run negative with many lamenting the formulaic nature of the film and the lack of chemistry between the leads. Bad Company is an example of the most bland and workman like products that come off Bruckheimer's conveyer belt.
Starting off on a major issue with the film, Chris Rock is hopelessly miscast in the roles of Kevin Pope and Jake Hayes and isn't helped by a terrible and inconsistent script that alters between making Jake a genius and an idiot when the situation calls for it. While Rock had showcased his comedic prowess in some notable supporting roles in Lethal Weapon 4, Dogma, Nurse Betty, and Osmosis Jones along with his prolific television work, Rock doesn't have a lot of range beyond his motormouthed street smart persona which makes it hard for him to blend into roles where he's a refined and sophistic CIA agent. You'd think given that the other role Rock plays in the film, Jake, is a streetwise chessmaster and hustler that would work better for Rock, but more often than not the script relies on him mugging and screaming lines in a manner that's more fitted to Martin Lawrence than Chris Rock (probably why there's a myth this movie started as an aborted sequel to Blue Streak). Anthony Hopkins has no chemistry with Rock in the mentor/mentee relationship that's clearly striving to be something like the Will Smith/Tommy Lee Jones pairing from Men in Black but lacks any of the heart or character that made that work and the villains are so stock that were it not for the fact they were attacking New York City no one would remember anything about them.
Bad Company is truth in advertising in that spending time with this film makes you re-evaluate several life decisions that brought you to this point. Chris Rock is wasted and miscast in a role that doesn't play to his strengths, Anthony Hopkins phones it in with barely any investment, and the villains have no real definition or menace beyond being lazy plot devices.
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