After two years of forced break due to the slap given to Chris Rock during the Oscar Night of 2022, the famous detective couple (Will Smith e Martin Lawrence) of Miami returns to the big screen in the fourth chapter of the #BadBoys saga
Synopsis: Quest’estate, the world's most beloved "Bad Boys" return with their iconic mix of action and unbridled irony, but this time with a twist: the two Miami champions are now the wanted ones.
Review: Will Smith makes his return to the big screen playing the character that made him most famous: il detective Mike Lowrey. This choice, strongly desired by the director, aims to rehabilitate his image in Hollywood, also accentuated by the dramatic performance (and superfluous) scene in which he is slapped several times by his right shoulder Marcus Burnett, creating an immediate logical connection in the viewer.
The alchemy between the two detectives turns out to be the fulcrum of the narrative thread, in a plot that no longer sees them playing the usual role of hunter but rather that of the hare. In an effort to defend the reputation of the late Captain Howard, falsely accused posthumously for having bribed the men of the police district, the two are ambushed by powerful Miami drug cartels, forcing them into a clandestine escape to save their skin. A series of moles and shape-shifting characters will make the narrative gripping and uncertain until its epilogue.
Like many American action films, Bad Boys also alternates sequences of violent scenes with moments of comedy to relieve tension. however, this last chapter introduces a series of atypical elements for the classic action genre in line with the choice of hybridization of film genres. Leveraging the three previous chapters, the directors decided to include some episodes from the characters' past, highlighting their remorse and mistakes through flashbacks that arouse intrapersonal psychological reflections in them, rarely detectable in this type of narrative. Furthermore, the directors have managed brilliantly to create connections with previous films, understandable even to the viewer who had not seen the past episodes.
Among the technical innovations perceptible in this new episode of Bad Boys is the use of the "SnorriCam": a tool fixed to the actor's body which independently supports the camera and is able to rotate simultaneously with the person's movement and therefore transforms into his point of view. This innovation makes it possible to switch from a close-up to a first-person view, creating a dynamism in the scene that recalls the style of video games.
#BadBoys represents a successful hybridization between the classic and contemporary styles of action films. If for the fight scenes the typical interpretative mode of Eddie Murphy in Beverly Hills Cop is still adopted (1984) and subsequently taken up by the Fast saga & Furious, the script used for the film's investigative moments has been enriched by recent technological advances: from the use of deepfake audio to manipulate voices, to AI to reconstruct faces, up to drones capable of controlling every corner of the universe.
It is a film that embraces and satisfies a wide age range, with doses of action, comedy, psychological introjections supported by very current technology that achieve the goal of fully entertaining the viewer.
The end, deliberately left open by the directors suggests a new chapter in the saga.
Stefano Sica