Call it Will Smith’s comeback movie.
The first Bad Boys in 1995 was a landmark movie for several reasons. The action-comedy was produced by Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer and was directed by Michael Bay in his feature film debut. Bad Boys starred Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, then best known as the stars of the sitcoms The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and Martin, respectively. The movie’s success paved the way for Smith to become one of Hollywood’s biggest stars and marked the beginning of Bay’s explosive career helming high-octane action movies.
After the release of Bad Boys II in 2003, the franchise took a long break until 2020. Bad Boys for Life reunited Smith and Lawrence after several years of false starts in getting a third movie off the ground. Young Belgian directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah (collectively billed as Adil & Bilall) took the reins from Bay, who remained on board as a producer. Bad Boys for Life received better critical notices and a higher box office gross than its two predecessors.
Cue the inevitable fourth movie, Bad Boys: Ride or Die.
Smith and Lawrence reprise their roles as lifelong best friends Mike Lowrey and Marcus Burnett, respectively. Both of them are also Miami Police Department detectives — and working on outrageous and dangerous cases together seems to be something that comes to them naturally.
Mike marries his physical therapist, Christine (Melanie Liburd), and Marcus has a mild heart attack during Mike’s wedding. When Marcus awakes, he and Mike discover a conspiracy to frame their deceased captain Conrad Howard (Joe Pantoliano), tying him to drug cartels to cover for the actual corrupt cops. Mike and Marcus are determined to clear Captain Howard’s name, seeking the assistance of Armando Aretas (Jacob Scipio), Mike’s illegitimate son and the former cartel hitman who killed Captain Howard. Armando identifies James McGrath (Eric Dane), a DEA agent and Army Ranger-turned-criminal mastermind, as the man who hired him to kill Captain Howard. James frames Mike and Marcus as the duo and Armando go on the run.
Bad Boys for Life showed that there was still life in the franchise and proved that Adil & Bilall could handle a big-budget Hollywood production. The duo hit a snag in their careers when their Batgirl movie was canned by Warner Bros. when it was close to completion. Mega-producer Bruckheimer brought them back for the next Bad Boys, and they were in the big leagues again. “He is our godfather. There was no doubt that he wanted to continue with us as quickly as possible on the next movie,” El Arbi tells The Hollywood Reporter about Bruckheimer.
An obstacle stood in the duo’s way: Smith went from being one of the world’s most-liked celebrities to one of the most reviled after slapping Chris Rock on stage at the Oscars in 2022. Bad Boys: Ride or Die is the first major release starring Smith since Emancipation was released later that year. The directors acknowledge “some parallels between what’s happening in the movie and real life”, telling UNILAD: “It’s almost like a meta experience that Will in the character of Mike Lowrey goes through with some themes.” In the movie, Mike experiences panic attacks, refusing to acknowledge the toll that recent events are taking on him. Ride or Die takes a gamble with a somewhat surprising reference to the slapping incident. “In the test screenings, it was one of the biggest laughs you could have, [so] we felt like, ‘Okay, we did the right thing.’ It worked out, and it was important for that moment, for the movie, and for Will,” El Arbi tells Variety.
Beyond serving as a comeback for Smith, Ride or Die must deliver both the back-and-forth comedy and the propulsive action that audiences expect from the franchise, and it does so in spades. The non-stop bickering between Mike and Marcus is ever-present, and the movie serves up inventive action set pieces, including a fight in a crashing Chinook helicopter, a climactic showdown at an abandoned alligator park, and a shootout in which Marcus’ son-in-law Reggie (Dennis Greene) takes control. “The Reggie sequence is the ultimate. He really stole the movie,” Fallah says. The spectacular, almost John Wick-esque scene pays off the comedic moment of Mike and Marcus intimidating Reggie, who wants to date Marcus’ daughter, in Bad Boys II. “In the history of cinema, a payoff to a setup like that has never happened in a movie series,” El Arbi says hyperbolically — and yet, he might just be right.
While Smith remains controversial, and there might never be a complete resolution to the infamous slap, it’s safe to say general audiences have welcomed him back. It seems fitting that the franchise that launched him to movie stardom would also aid in his redemption. With a worldwide box office gross of $395.6 million, discussion about a fifth Bad Boys movie has already begun. “We want to make it international… we want to go around the world with them,” Fallah says. Bad Boys: World Tour? It just might happen.
The world's favourite Bad Boys are back with their iconic mix of edge-of-your-seat action and outrageous comedy but this time with a twist: Miami's finest are now on the run.
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