Anthony Hopkins as Oaks
Chris Rock as Jake Hays
Gabriel Macht as Someone I Can't Remember
Peter Stormare as Adrik Vas
Garcelle Beauvais as Nicole
Director is Joel Schumacher
Review Date is June 25, 2002
Buddy Action Comedy-Jake Hays is a street-smart chess hustler who also scalps tickets. When his girlfriend breaks up with him, CIA agents gather him and tell him that his brother worked with them but has been killed. So the CIA, including Agent Oaks, get Jake to fill in for his brother for a bomb transfer. Jake is like Yin to his brother's Yang (or the other way around...). Jake listens to rap, his brother to classical, etc. So now the CIA must get Jake accustomed to the strict CIA rules while he finds a new girl (kind of).
4/10-First of all, I would like to say that this plot is too close to real life and 9/11. A bomb about to go off in a public place? I don't think all of America's ready for that. It tried to be a Rush Hour, but came off more as a Showtime. Chris and Anthony Hopkins never really clicked as friends/enemies until the end, so I wouldn't even call it a buddy flick. Also, the tension wasn't there until the very end. It was very predictable, but then again, it's a comedy. Speaking of comedy-it wasn't funny. Couple laughs here and there, but it tried to hard to make people laugh everytime Chris said a bad word. Most funny parts were in the previews. Also, the running time was too long-about two hours. That's not good for a comedy.
Also, the gun fights were extremely cookie-cutter. The bad guys has machine guns and the good guys has handguns, and guess who always won? They were right in the line of fire, but never got hurt. How amazing! Chris and Mr. Hopkins, as I've said before, never clicked, so maybe it would have been better to choose other people, Joel? I mean, Chris' emotions were over done. When he was crying from the break-up, you could see how fake, and even the eye drops. Tony was fine, but that wasn't the problem. I don't see why he would do a project like this after a great career. One last comment-what kind of a name for a movie is Bad Company? It had nothing to do with the plot.
Rated PG-13 for language and violence.