The plot’s dumb but there’s plenty to enjoy as Will Smith and Martin Lawrence return after 17 years to trade jibes and blow stuff up
Martin Lawrence may not have starred in a motion picture for close to a decade, but he has a special place in my life. When I went to see his dopey 2001
comedy Black Knight, it was the first time I truly laughed with abandon post-9/11. With absolute seriousness, I will be forever grateful. So, while Bad Boys for Life has a completely asinine story, generic action, predictable plot beats, moronic dialogue and truly reprehensible politics, I still had a good time.
Lawrence, who can tell an entire story on his face in one reaction shot, must shout “Oh shit!” a hundred times in Bad Boys for Life. Each time it is funny for a different reason. He uses an exclamatory “Oh shit!” the way Rembrandt used oils. If he was endearing as a young man, he is doubly so at the age of 54, with his Bad Boys character Marcus Burnett a new grandfather eager to retire from the Miami
police force. He needs glasses for distance, is infrequently intimate with his wife and hears the Barcalounger calling to him. “All our lives we’ve been Bad Boys,” he says in one of the film’s more humiliating moments. “Now it’s time to be Good Men.”