Keeping 'Bad Company'

By Esther Iverem
SeeingBlack.com Editor and Film Critic

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"Bad Company" is what you call a summer action flick, with plenty of shooting, car chases, casual profanity and cheesy allusions to sexuality. A notch above most films of its type, it is very entertaining, beautifully shot and has some killer one-liners, obviously contributed by Chris Rock. And it is very much a Jerry Bruckheimer guy flick. Women are in the margins as husband-seekers, either clad in Victoria Secret-type lingerie, bound and gagged as wilting hostages, or carrying a torch on the DL for old Anthony Hopkins (please!).

The surface plot, to keep all the action going, is that Jake Hayes (Rock) is asked by the CIA to stand in for his dead twin brother, who, before he was murdered, was on the verge of buying a nuclear weapon, to keep it from falling into the wrong hands. The CIA agent in charge of recruitment, Gaylord Oakes (Hopkins), doesn't tell Jake that his brother was murdered by rival buyers for the bomb, or that Jake is being put into extreme danger by accepting the assignment. Like "The Sum of All Fears," this film seizes upon our fear of terrorism and the threat of annihilation—and creates a nuclear bomb movie with jokes. Like "Bruckheimer's "Black Hawk Down," it places the ultimate task of saving the world into the hands of the White men who run the United States military and "intelligence" communities.

But, in this case, a brother is asked to come in and save the day too, and, in the process, provides the texture for the subplots: "Whose is Bigger?" and "Hip Hop and CIA: United We Stand." Jake, separated from his twin at birth, is a lightweight New York City hustler who scalps tickets to events at Madison Square Garden, deejays at a club and, at $20 a head, beats chumps at chess in Greenwich Village. His cherub-faced girlfriend (Kerry Washington) is getting the three-year itch and is ready to leave him for someone who can afford a wedding. In short, while Jake is street-smart and quick on his feet, he is also an aimless and undisciplined loser. Here comes the CIA to whip bro into shape (pour water over his head as a 5 A.M. wake-up call) and, in the process, learn just how smart this hustler is.

As the CIA puts Jake in one dangerous experience after another, playing him like a chess piece, the question is whether street smarts or CIA smarts will win out in the end. And for most of the film it doesn't look promising for the street. Jake can't get up early, he whines, he talks aloud about pooping his pants, he don't know how to act and, in a key chase scene, actually cries out for his mama. He's not quite a buffoon but he's definitely not a street soldier. Eventually, though, Jake represents large for small-time hustlers and Oakes shows that he (and presumably the CIA) has some integrity.

Rock gets to stretch as an actor here. There is one moment, in a scene with Kerry Washington, where the comedian has totally left him. He is broken, not laughing and not trying to make us laugh. For this moment alone, I found "Bad Company" worth the time.

Esther Iverem's film reviews also appear on BET.com

-- June 7, 2002

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