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Bad Company
(Reviewed May 19, 2002)
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"Bad Company?" The title should have been just plain "Bad."
Chris Rock once again thoroughly embarrasses himself in another pointless waste of time (although God knows no movie he makes is ever likely to be as embarrassing and pointless as his "Down to Earth"). This time he plays the "street homeboy" twin brother of a murdered CIA agent. In a matter of days, Rock has to acquire sufficient social graces, spy skills and antique-appraising abilities (don't ask) to pass for that brother and avert nuclear catastrophe. Incredibly, this is not played as out-and-out slapstick nonsense. Sir Anthony Hopkins, slumming as Rock's CIA boss, acts as if he thinks he is in a tasteful espionage drama.
As in "Down to Earth" (in which Rock was reincarnated as a wealthy white man), we are treated to a somewhat disturbing scene in which an unsophisticated black man does the bug-eyed, loudmouthed, "fish out of water" bit in an elegant apartment, as if no poor person of color ever possibly could fit into such surroundings without lapsing into clueless vulgarity. He may as well have chicken-walked across the terrazzo floor with a watermelon in one hand and a 40-ounce malt liquor in the other.
The lines that are supposed to be funny aren't, the drama isn't dramatic, and the whole thing feels very tired and "seen-it-before." Don't bother.
Back Row Grade: F
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