"I LIKED CHRIS BETTER WHEN HE WAS SMOKIN' ROCK" (reviewed by OG)

Joel Schumacher. The man. The myth. The dick who brought us BATMAN AND ROBIN. But then again, the guy directed THE LOST BOYS, FLATLINERS, 8MM, A TIME TO KILL, FALLING DOWN, and TIGERLAND. The bad is far outweighed by the good...but not for long, it seems.

Schumacher's latest flick is BAD COMPANY, which is almost as unbelievable as the Ellen Barkin/Lawrence Fishburne film of the same name. In it we have Chris Rock as a low-down street con-man (and they say black roles are stereotypical these days!) whose twin brother is killed during a CIA operation. Um...that is...the twin brother he doesn't know about, of course. Oh...and his brother's former boss and friend is played by Anthony Hopkins. Whoever pulled this one out of his ass deserves a cigar.

So now the only way the CIA can stop a psycho from buying/detonating a bomb in Manhattan is by training the remaining sibling to look, act, and sound just like the dead one. Anthony Hopkins, whose sense of humor is better served by his Hannibal Lecter character, does his very best to look concerned, but you can ultimately tell that he took the paycheck, said a prayer, and moved on to finishing up RED DRAGON (the newest Lecter flick) after this one wrapped.

As for Chris Rock...you've gotta hand it to the guy. He manages to save a lot of this film with his trademark humor, but it's when Schumacher decides to go into action territory that the film falls flat on its overfed ass. Schumacher, who has a knack for staging and filming intense drama and emotional release, shoots his visceral car chase/shoot-out sequences with an editing tactic that could easily be bested by Andrea Bocelli (Bocelli is blind, you see. Sit back and enjoy the joke). You can barely tell what's going on, and for the most part, you don't care. By the end of the flick, the jokes have disappeared, and Rock's "serious" acting when faced with the prospect of losing a loved one seems misplaced at best. Anthony Hopkins final line, albeit the funniest moment of the movie, can't save what is, in essence, a by-the-numbers flick.

I still remember a few scenes from Schumacher's repertoire, though, that give me hope for the future. The private-talking-down-the-drill-sergeant scene from TIGERLAND...the grand finale of THE LOST BOYS...The fast food scene from FALLING DOWN.

Don't give up on the guy just yet.

(6.15.02)