‘Bad Boys: Ride Or Die’ Review: Will Smith-Starrer Cop Comedy Is A Whole Lotta Trashy, Silly Fun

A wedding, a fatal heart attack and a posthumous message later, Mike and Marcus seek help from Rita Secada (Paola Núñez), Kelly (Vanessa Hudgens) and Dorn (Alexander Ludwig) to nab the ‘bad-bad’ boys. Directed by Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, the film has stunning action sequences—from a shootout choreographed on a free-falling plane to a gravity-defying glass elevator fight—the Moroccon duo retain OG director Michael Bay’s signature action style in the film and balance it out with plenty humour amidst the mayhem.

Humour With An Edge

“Just because we [are] black we [are] stealing your shit?” asks Marcus as he is caught stealing clothes from a house in the countryside along with Mike. The accusation of racism is met with disbelief. The owner of the house asks Marcus and Mike to sing a Reba song (one of their t-shirts has a printed image of Reba, the iconic American country singer).

In a hilarious goof-up, Bennet sings Jamaican Reggae band Inner Circle’s 1987 hit ‘Bad Boys Reply’. As a response, the men fire shots at the cop-duo. It is moments like these which make the fourth installment of a nearly three-decade-long buddy cop action franchise an immensely watchable and memorable film despite the mindless action scenes and mid-air shootouts in-between. The camaraderie between Smith and Lawrence, both men in their 50s, is fresh and quite tongue-in-cheek.

The Reenactment of Oscar-Slapgate

Towards the end of the film, Mike (Will Smith) is slapped repeatedly by Marcus in what seems like a reference to the infamous Oscar slapgate. For the uninitiated, Will Smith had slapped comedian Chris Rock at the 94th Academy Awards. The incident got the actor banned from all Academy-related events for ten years, causing a delay in Smith’s film releases, including this one.

The scene is poetic justice, almost as if it was written to elicit a reaction of sympathy from the viewers, making them go “Poor guy…hasn’t he suffered enough?” Some might view it as a harmless self-referential joke. At some point, we all wanted Chris Rock to give it back to Smith, right?

It is almost as if Smith and Co. thought “They want to see me get slapped? Let’s give them what they want”. The scene leaves much to be desired since Rock and Smith still haven’t buried the hatchet off-screen. The film cannot not acknowledge the slap (since it is a monumental moment in Smith’s life now) but the gaze is largely sympathetic towards the aggressor, even though it may come across as a cathartic release to some.

Slapgate reenactment aside, Bad Boys: Ride or Die is best described as trashy, harmless fun. The film isn’t here to move mountains. It is just the type of adventurous, nostalgia-laden sequel in an iconic cop buddy franchise you’d want to watch on a movie night. Here’s hoping the film doesn’t go the Fast And Furious way and spawn countless spin-offs and sequels.

Bad Boys: Ride or Die is now playing in theaters.