Main cast: Anthony Hopkins (Gaylord Oaks), Chris Rock (Jake Hayes, Kevin Pope), Matthew Marsh (Dragan Adjanic), Kerry Washington (Julie), Peter Stormare (Adrik Vas), and Garcelle Beauvais (Nicole)
Director: Joel Schumacher
Imagine my horror when, staring at the movie poster, I saw the name of the director. Joel Schumacher. He of the nipple and protruding Batman and Robin crotches, the shoe-muncher of mediocrity. “Let’s watch something else!” I exclaim, but too late, the tickets are already purchased. Can I have some aspirin with my popcorn?
And seriously, what is wrong with Chris Rock? Why is he playing the same role in all his movies – the preachy black Guy who mocks white dudes while making Black Is Good Statements with the subtlety of the nuclear explosions in this movie? Cut that out, it’s cloying and annoying to the extreme.
This is definitely one of Anthony Hopkins’s “I’m in it for the paycheck” movies. Not that I like him that much anyway, but that’s another rant for another day. Here, he just looks lost and bewildered and even bored as he plays an FBI operative who tries to mold Mr Rock’s character into a suave FBI agent.
Mr Rock plays conman Jack Hayes, whose twin brother Kevin Pope is killed in a mission. Jack doesn’t even know he has a twin brother, but well, now he knows. And unless he cooperates with Gaylord Oaks and the FBI, a nuclear bomb will fall into terrorists’ hands and Manhattan will go kaboom.
So, the first half of Bad Company is basically My Fair Brother, amusing only if you find the Brother Surrounded By Posh Luxury thing, done to death by Mr Rock on TV, still funny. He hams it up, probably believing that this movie will save the brothers for all I know, while Mr Hopkins looks as if he’s not really there – it’s just a projection of him and he’s calling in his lines from a cellphone in Upper Guam.
Then comes the later half. Chases! Bomb goes ticky-ticky-ticky! People pretending to still care about this movie!
Boy, am I glad when this dull, dreary movie with one of the most chemistry-free male duos ever is finally over.
