Review Copyright Rose Cooper, 2002

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Gotta love truth in advertising: Joel Schumacher Films? Bad Company! THE STORY (WARNING: **spoilers contained below**) If by "the story", we mean "this incredibly pathetic excuse for an explanation of why things A, B, and C happened in this incredibly pathetic excuse for a movie", well, ok... CIA Agent Gaylord Oakes (Anthony Hopkins) is up the creek when his partner Kevin Pope (Chris Rock) goes from being a walking stiff to being a just plain stiff. Oakes and Pope were in the middle of a big noocler operation against The Terrorists, one which Pope's untimely death threatened to muck up a bit. With The Fate Of The World on the line, Oakes and his team of completely forgettable agents track down - get this - Kevin's twin brother, Jake Hayes (Chris Rock), a "streetwise punk" (so says the ads) about to lose his brainy girlfriend Julie (Kerry Washington) if he can't get it together. You'll note the difference in the brothers' last names. But this is not just a simple case of different babydaddys, nosiree; the folks behind this joke of a film win the prize for Dumbest Reason Ever, in explaining how Jake and Kevin managed to never know the other existed (but of course, the CIA did). Then some other, equally stupid, stuff happens, involving wooden terrorist Vas (Peter Stormare) and the obligatory mistaken-identity-mixup with Kevin's old girlfriend Nicole (Garcelle Beauvais-Nilon), the end. THE UPSHOT You can bore me. You can even take the air out of my Disbelief's Suspension. But gotdammit, you are not allowed to insult my intelligence. Bad Company managed to do all three simultaneously. And worse: it piled on the injury of making one of my favorite actors - Anthony Hopkins - look like the living dead. How bad was this movie? Here's a hint: I bring my notepad into every movie I see, taking notes about the movie I'm watching until the (sometimes) bitter end. But not so during Bad Company. I took an unprecedented break in mid-film to get out and get some fresh air; and when I came back, I just couldn't be arsed to care anymore. I mean, how many times can you write "...and they did other stuff. And they did other stuff. And they did other stuff." before you realize that this movie just isn't worth the effort it takes to pay attention to lunacy after lunacy? Come on, Joel Schumacher; is that any way to film "action"? aww, who'm I kidding? Schumacher wouldn't know Good Filming if it walked up and slapped him upside the head. He's the kind of director for whom the Cluestick was custom-made. This movie was so badly filmed, Chris Rock was the only color in it. This is A Bad Thing, because Rock was a pale imitation of himself. Why I don't give this one the three-redlight treatment is, frankly, a mystery even to me. Perhaps it was because I saw a glimmer of a spark between Rock and Kerry Washington (Julie) in their not-over-the-top scenes, or because Rock wasn't his usual Loud self. Or maybe it's because after nearly 117 minutes of looking like the living dead, Anthony Hopkins' grimace of a smile near the end made me realize that he, too, knew he was trapped in bad company. BAMMER'S BOTTOM LINE Bad company. Bad movie. Just plain bad. BAD COMPANY:   back to top And that's the way I see it. Rose "Bams" Cooper 3BlackChicks Review™ Copyright Rose Cooper, 2002 EMAIL: bams@3blackchicks.com    ICQ: 7760005 http://www.3blackchicks.com/