Bad Boys - In A Nutshell
📽️ Bad Boys - In A Nutshell 🎬
Seen the movie? We will challenge how you see it, pointing out things you may have missed even if you've seen it many times.
Haven’t seen it? We will give you a quick, simple, spoiler-free breakdown to help you decide if it’s worth your time.
In this episode of Movies In A Nutshell:
✅ The Nutshell: A clear, spoiler-free summary for new viewers.
✅ Ratings & Reviews: How do critics and audiences compare—and what does that say about the film’s legacy?
✅ What Did We Miss?: Hidden layers are uncovered, challenging how you see the movie.
✅ Paul’s Facts of the Day: Fascinating trivia and behind-the-scenes insights.
✅ What Do We Think?: The first time in the episode Marc, Darren, and Paul share their personal thoughts after holding back opinions until now.
💻 Available to watch:
US Vudu (Fandango at Home) – with ads
UK Prime Video
Even if you think you know His Girl Friday, Darren might just make you see it differently... 🎙️
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Movies In A Nutshell
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Marc Farquhar
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Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/themarcfarquhar
Darren Horne
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thedarrenhorne
Paul Day
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pauldaylive23
Recorded at:
Sunbeams Studios – https://www.thestudioatsunbeams.co.uk
Music:
Main Theme: BreakzStudios – https://pixabay.com/users/breakzstudios-38548419/
Music Bed: ProtoFunk – Kevin MacLeod (https://www.incompetech.com)
(All music licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License)
Transcript
Foreign.
Marc:Hello and welcome to Movies in a Nutshell with me, Mark Farquhar, myself, Darren.
Paul:Horn, and I, Paul Day.
Marc:Join us every week for quick, entertaining, spoiler free movie breakdowns followed by fun facts and trivia.
Darren:From timeless classics to cult favorites to the latest releases, here are three reasons.
Paul:To listen to this podcast. Save time by quickly learning what a movie's about, spoiler free, and decide if it's worth your time.
Marc:Discover hidden details and things you may have missed. And that includes Darren Challenging the way you see a movie, even if you've seen it 100 times.
Darren:Get recommendations for your next watch.
Marc:So grab some popcorn and let's jump into this week's movie. Right, it's time to break down. But bad boys. Paul, this was your choice.
Paul:Yeah, it was.
Marc:Okay, so this is part one. We call it diagnostics and we will do the movie stats. We will then look at the synopsis and we will compare it to our own version.
This will be yours, Paul. Yours against the official. We give you the movie in a nutshell without spoilers, and then we will take a brief look at some ratings and reviews.
ime. It was released in April: Darren:Rated R. Yeah, it's just basically 18, isn't it?
Marc:Yeah, there's a lot of violence and restricted. Yeah, it's 1 hour 59. The genre is action comedy crime. Stars Will Smith, Martin Lawrence and Tia Leone. Directed by Michael Bay.
Written by Michael Barry, Jim Mulholland, Doug Richardson. Music by Mark Manzina Mancina. The budget was 19 million and it took 141 worldwide. Synopsis. Time.
Darren:And you can't pass, Paul. We've learned that do not pass.
Paul:You can't pass on the synopsis.
Marc:You'll never pass. Never happening.
Paul:Feeling you're judging this choice. Choice. This is a classic choice action movie from those.
Marc:Paul's gonna give us his version of the synopsis and then we'll pit his against the official. So off you go, Paul.
Paul:I hate writing these, but I'm gonna give it a go.
Miami narcotics detectives Marcus Burnett and Mike Lowrer take on the latest case, which involves a robbery, a drugs robbery from the police evidence locker, which leads them to protecting a witness who witnessed a murder. Expect comedy action Bay him. See what I did there? See what I did there? Darren's sighing at me already.
Marc:So am I.
Darren:It was okay thing to say.
Marc:Facial synopsis. There's Two hip, hip, hip detectives. No one says hip anymore.
Paul:I don't think they're both here because the different character. Anyway, carry on.
Darren:One's a.
Marc:This has come from the marketing department, so they're talking about. They can't do it correctly.
Anyway, two hip detectives protect a murder witness while investigating a case of stolen heroin from the evidence storage room of their police present.
Paul:Okay, that's more succinct than what I said, but still, it doesn't.
Darren:It's not. Doesn't sound fun.
Marc:It sounds really basic and boring. But there you go. That's kind of almost the nutshell of what the film is.
Paul:That is the nutshell. Yeah.
Marc:Let's move on to the nutshell. What is this movie about? I'll go with you, Paul, first.
Darren:Good idea, good idea.
Paul:I. I think it's. Well, this is Will Smith's first big film. It's Mike Lawrence's first big film.
It's like you've got these two comic actors and you threw them together as police detectives in this buddy comedy. I guess, you know, if you're in your Lethal Weapons and your Beverly Hills Cop sort of genre of film, it's in that thing.
Obviously, it's produced by Don Simpson, Jerry Bruckheimer, who did the Beverly Hills Cop or the first two Beverly Hills Cops and stuff like Top Gun, things like that. So it's got that real 80s feel, even though it's in the 90s. So it's got the 90s feel, but it's that action blockbuster feel to it.
And it's Michael Bay. This is Michael Bay's first film where he shows what. Michael Bay is now very well known for his action films and still a.
Darren:Little bit on the leash, which I prefer.
Paul:Still a bit on the leash. Yeah, yeah. Backstory for me, Michael Bay. So I knew about.
re I saw Bad boys, because in:So Michael Bay used to direct lots of music videos before he did movies. And one of the sets of music videos he did was for Meat Love's Battle of Hell 2.
So Battle of Hell 2 Back into Hell had three music videos attached to it. One of them, you'll know probably, which is Anything for Love, but I won't do that, which was all a big Beauty and the Beast sort of thing.
And for a music video, you'll probably still agree, well, you won't probably still agree because it's like a million years ago and all the kids be like, oh, that video's sedated now, man. Not that that's how the kids speak these days. This is looking at me like that.
Darren:This is a roller coaster.
Paul:I know it is.
Darren:Monologue.
Paul:It is. And I'm still going. I still got. But anyway, he did three music videos for Meat Love for the album. He did Anything for Love.
He did Rock and Roll Dreams Come through, which actually starred a very young Angelina Jolie before she was famous. And he did one called Objects in the Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are. I'm hoping some listeners know for a song. It's Meatloaf.
He has brackets in there. I do Anything For Love brackets, but.
Marc:I won't do that.
Paul:But he filmed these videos and if you have seen them, they're all very epically filmed. They're very much. Well, the Objects in the Rear View Mirror one's got lots of image.
You'd enjoy the imagery and stuff in it, Darren, because it's lots of the stuff that Michael Bay then puts in his later films. Very American, very kind of old school, traditional.
Darren:Yeah, American Flags.
Paul:Yeah, yeah. Fast cuts and everything else. But that's where I saw Michael Bay in the first time.
My brother got this VHS back in the Hell Picture show and it was Michael Bay talking about making mini movies with Meatloaf. Anyway, fast forward. This may get cut. Who knows? That's what we're like. Oh, I like the personal touch Paul gave with the story. Oh, I fell asleep.
Paul, try to nutshell it. But then, obviously this is Michael Bay's first foray into films and it is him kind of off his leash a little bit, but reeled in, like Darren says.
So you've got the action scenes, which, you know, he kind of builds on with. If you've seen things like the Rock and armageddon and obviously 400 transformers films and some of the stuff that he's done.
But the heart of this, it's very much the Martin Lawrence, Will Smith movie debut show. Obviously, Martin Lawrence went on to make lots of other comedy films, but Will Smith then became Will Smith. Get your wife's name out of now.
Can't do it. I know, that was bad, right?
Darren:No, it's fine. But, yeah, we need to talk about that as well.
Paul:We do. So the career of Will Smiths up and, you know, this is the first one of what's now become a franchise. So at the time, obviously wasn't a franchise.
It was Just another film. But now there's been four bad boy movies today.
Marc:Yeah.
Paul:In terms of the nutshell itself, the story is what you've just said. It's a drugs bust. It's, you know, crooked cops, it's murder, it's all that kind of stuff. But it's very much about the banter between the two of them.
And the action scene. Yes.
Marc:About their relationship.
Paul:Their relationship. And that's what it is.
And again, the comparisons, I've been Beverly Hills Cop, Lethal Weapon, all these sort of films are actually buddy cop movies, especially the 80s 90s, that kind of thing.
Marc:It's like the seriousness to the comedy. To the seriousness.
Paul:Yeah, yeah, it's good. And that's your nutshell, basically. If you like these guys, you definitely going to enjoy it. If you're intrigued, maybe you'll enjoy it.
If you enjoy Michael Bay movies, like, if you enjoyed the Rock and stuff like this, you'll probably want to see his enjoyment. His first feature to see him in action. That's my nutshell. Anyway, without giving too much, should we.
Marc:Just move on down?
Darren:I could just add, because question is what it's about, right?
Paul:Yeah, yeah.
Darren: So it's basically a: Paul:That's cool.
Darren: were talking about is just a:But I think it's about. It's like Team America. Like America. Fuck. Yeah. This is about now.
Marc:That would be a great shot for this.
Darren:This is about when cops go rogue. Right. It's vigilante copism. So it's right wing in that way.
And I remember reading an article a while back saying that you couldn't really make Lethal Weapon now because since George Floyd, we don't want our cops to be vigilante and rogue and do whatever they need to do to get the job done. We want them to obey the rules and protect and to serve. So it's. It was in the 90s when it was still kind of okay to do that.
So, yeah, for me, it's about heteronormative masculinity, out of control with authority.
Marc:Wow.
Paul:There you go.
Marc:Excellent.
Paul:I learned already that's the nutshell right there. Yeah, I was like, it's just two cops blowing stuff up. No, no.
Marc:Yeah, what he said louder.
Paul:What he said, but louder.
Darren:But it's also got like the. The 80s kind of like, arnie, I'll be back, kind of, you know, he's dead tired. There was loads of little things like that, like, tell me a joke now.
Whatever.
Marc:Let's move on. Let's have a look at the ratings and reviews. So, Rotten Tomatoes, what do you think.
Darren:The critics gave it, Darren, the critics would hate what? Depends on the critic. The Daily Mail would have loved it. But any. Anything with any credibility would probably. Probably give it seven.
Marc:Well, in Rotten Tomatoes, the critically was 43%.
Darren:Man. I've got a lot of respect for those critics.
Paul:The users.
Marc:The users were 78.
Paul:Yeah. They're more.
Darren:Because they're not saying it's bad. Well, they're not saying you can't like it, they're saying it's bad.
Paul:I think the critics are just, you know, they need to loosen up, man.
Marc:It's just their opinion. IMDb was 6.8 out of 10.
Darren:Yeah.
Marc:Metacritic, the critics review was 41 out of 100 and the users were 7.6 out of 10.
Darren:I would have thought the user review would have been higher.
Paul:Yeah.
Darren:See why. I mean, there's four movies, isn't there now?
Paul:Four now. Yeah.
Darren:Like, there's a fan base for it.
Paul:Yeah. Yeah.
Darren:And it can, you know, you can think, you know, you can enjoy.
Marc:Unless this is people being honest coming. I know it's a bit. But I like it.
Darren:Yeah. Or maybe, who knows? Backlash to Will Smith, if those are modern.
Marc:Could be. There's been so many reviews for this film, though. So it's just this was.
Paul:I just feel like the critics, as soon as it's like a blockbuster action film straight away out the gate, they're already a bit like those.
Marc:Bit down, isn't it?
Paul:That's. That's not Citizen Kane. It's like. No, it's not meant to be. It's meant to be bad boys.
Marc:You have to. You mentioned Citizen Kane a lot.
Paul:Well, I do. I've never seen it, but I always. I just notice that that's what the critics tend to say. Like, it's not Citizen Kane.
I keep meaning to watch it just to see what.
Marc:We're gonna have to review it now. I know that's your next choice.
Paul:Me and my always say, like, why did the critics always refer to Citizen K? We must watch this film. But we've been saying that for about 20 years and we still haven't got around to it.
Darren:So Citizen Kane is like the Beatles of the film industry.
Paul:Yeah.
Darren:Okay. It's kind of changed the film industry.
Marc:Okay.
Paul:But yeah, I feel like they feel like every film should be that sort of thing.
Marc:That's the gold standard.
Paul:And when it's Martin Lawrence and Will Smith going like, you know, you're damn right it's limited. No cup holder in the front seat, like in the front, you know, all that kind of banner.
Marc:Right.
Paul:Wonderful film.
Marc:And let's look at some reviews.
So Todd McCarthy of Variety, he praised the films for its energetic direction and the chemistry between the leads, stating that the movie clicks through its action sequences with efficient, hard edged panache.
Paul:Yeah, mayhem.
Marc:Roger Ebert of Chicago Sun Times critiqued the film for its reliance on style over substance, noting that it tries with all the energy at its command to redeem an exhausted story with sheer technique.
Darren:Yeah, that's valid. That's what your ebay is. Yeah.
Marc:Right. Let's move on to part two, which is spoiler territory. Okay, so in part two we have what did we miss?
Where we mainly, Darren will challenge the way you see this movie and we will reveal some things you may have missed, whether you've seen it for the first time or 100 times. And in takeaways, we will give you, this is the first time we will give our actual opinions of the film.
And in test of Time, it can go one of two ways. So if it's an older movie, we'll discuss what would happen if released today.
And if it's a modern movie, we would discuss what would happen if it was released, say 25 years ago. So what did we miss? Paul, it's your choice. So I'm going to ask you first.
Paul:Oh, I don't do the what we miss territory. What did we miss? This subtle coding of. No, I don't know, it's Michael Bay blowing stuff up and Will Smith and Martin Lawrence Bantron.
You know, what do you want? Is very much. That's why I see it as. I know you'll have various things about themes potentially, Darren, but it's.
It's a big dumb action movie and I like action movies that have the comedy element with it, where they have the banter and everything. I do love Lethal Weapon Shocker. I do love Beverly Hills Cop jocker. You know, I am a walking stereotype of them kind of films. But.
But it's very much in their veins. Like you say, escaped the 80s somehow. But I love that fact.
I love the fact you've got this 90s film that's very much just like, hey, it's like Beverly Hills Cop vibes. Even the opening scene where it comes in with that dun dun dun dun dun, with the music and then the. Is it the Ferrari or the Porsche?
Darren:The music is lush.
Paul:Porsche flying away. And they got the band. Yeah. Apparently in my facts later, I'm going to tell you that scene was added later to give it more energy at the start.
But as soon as I watch, I was going through loads of films to try and pick the one I wanted.
Darren:And I landed on this while I.
Paul:Was watching the first five minutes of a few different films. Like maybe this one. Maybe you choose. Not normally, but I did on this one. I did on this one because I couldn't decide between about three films.
And I watched that first bit where they're in the. And I was like, yeah, I'm going to pick this one just to annoy Darren. No, we need.
Marc:What we need might be an app out there, the listeners can tell us where. When a film becomes available for free, included in a streaming service, it should, like, let you know.
Paul:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:There's lots of films we would want to pick what we can't because it's not available anyway. We don't want. We don't be suggesting things that people are gonna have to buy.
Paul:Yeah.
Marc:On top of their subscription. So that's it. If people wondered how we choose this, that's part of it.
Paul:But I don't know if there's much levels to this. It's very much cops, bad guys, crooked bad guys, crooked cops gone rogue.
Darren:It's French. Wasn't he the bad guy?
Paul:Yeah, yeah.
Darren:It feels like a 90s thing. You've got to be European.
Paul:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Darren:80S would have been probably the Russians.
Paul:Or, you know, something like Diplomatic community. What's that? Lethal Weapon 2?
Darren:Yes. South African. Is he?
Paul:Yeah, yeah. So I don't think there's too many layers to it other than the buddy bit of it is nice. And we've seen.
Well, I say we've seen because I've seen all four of them, which you see develop over the four films. And you see these two guys at different stages of family life. You've got the two different characters.
Obviously, Marcus Burnett, played by Martin Lawrence, has his family around him, whereas Will Smith's sort more your bachelor guy. And his parents had a trust fund or whatever. So he's obviously got the car and the suit and the jacket and there's a bit of stuff in them.
And one of the things I did think when I was watching it again is as much as you can knock it for being sort of maybe a dumb action blockbuster, they do switch between them beats of when they need to be Dramatic. Both of them are on it. And when they do need to be funny and comedy and bringing the jokes, they do that too.
Marc:Like when they get pulled over that first time.
Paul:Yeah, exactly. Okay, okay, Darren, what am I missing? What am I missing?
Marc:What have we got for us, Darren?
Darren:So you've got the out of control cop, obviously. So this is like on unrestricted copyright. And they're bad. They're bad. They're so bad.
They get to a homicide at one point and there's a crime scene, whatever. They're not wearing gloves, they're just picking up stuff. They're just doing whatever they want. Like this is.
These people haven't had any training at.
Paul:All with evidence movie magic there.
Darren:I think my main. I loved the fact that they're both African American and they're both cops. That's wonderful. And I love the fact it's white drug dealers.
That's a really nice flip because for, you know, many years picking through the 70s, it would be, you know, if you're African American, you're a pimp, you're a drug dealer, you know, all that's kind of toxic. And you can have characters that have unred.
The unredeeming traits and usually you would have a character arc so that they kind of get to deal with that. But on the whole, this movie is, I think it's a little bit racist between the races.
Like there's a lot of kind of, kind of not bullying, but kind of back and forth between them. And I think they're the. The Italian co cops.
Paul:Oh yeah. They're like the other detectives.
Darren:Yeah. And there's a little bit of like kind of race language in there, so. But it's also pretty frickin homophobic.
these characters or the time:So there's bits where you know, so they're either calling each other bitch all. And it's like, hey, and you're a. And why are you calling me a? It's like, why? Why is that a bad thing? What are you talking about?
And the homophobic bit is where female character says, oh, why is there so many pictures of this guy? I thought he was your like your lover or something. And he's like, what? No, I'm not gay. Like, no, you've seen the dents in the bed. That's the one.
The bang. And it's like, yeah, gay people can do that too. Gay people can get notches on their bed. What do you think they do when they're in the bed?
Like, what is that? And they just think.
And this is something I've always had an issue with, with buddy cop movies like this, because I'd love it if, like, have you seen the Expendables? Yeah, Right. Which is, you know, goody pleasure. But Jason Statham and Sylvester Stallone in a bromance, basically.
And I love bromances, I think they're fun. But in the Expendables, they throw in Charisma Carpenter, who's got like a five minute part just to be like, Jason Statham's straight, It's okay.
Paul:That's right.
Darren:Like, there's no way these guys are fucking. We're good. We're good. And there's a little bit that way. No, there's a little bit of that with this.
And then I think with the portrayal of the family and. And this again, he said babies back. Yeah. And. But my Lawrence is always saying something like him, is it. I'm. It's been a while.
I haven't got my needs or. I mean, I didn't know. I haven't had any quality time. My wife's not giving me any quality time.
And she's like, well, maybe if you came to bed with me at the same time, maybe you'd get some. Like, you're not prioritizing your family, but the family's kind of two dimensional and dysfunctional and she's not listening to him at all.
Like, it's insane. Whereas with Lethal Weapon, which I haven't seen for a while, so it may not hold up.
Danny Glover's family is a functioning family and there's, like, love there and there's support and there's different things going on and there's a warmth to that family, whereas there's a coldness.
Paul:The mutas.
Darren:Yeah. And it's kind of played for laughs. I remember just feeling a bit uncomfortable with it, and I'm not really sure why that is, even though.
But I think it's also partly that it's badly made.
Like, there's a lot of scenes where it's exposition, so they're just telling you stuff and jumping to conclusions out of nowhere, like, oh, you know who we should see? We should go see Donnie. Because this has just occurred to me, which means. Just occurred to you. Like, and there's a scene where they go.
And I can remember I saw this, like, you know, when we were kids. And I loved it. And I was quoting it with my brothers. And we'd be like, you want badges? I got stinking badges. Like. Like, we were swearing away.
We were, like, totally going with it.
But that whole scene to say, oh, now we're going to a new location that's all lit, like it's in Mexico or something, that she's gone to get some shampoo. They're just talking, and the guy pulls a gun. Because this racial profiling. Are these two black guys that just walked into my.
Surely you have other black customers. Look where you are in Miami.
Marc:What? Like, it's an unusual occurrence.
Darren:Right. But it's in. They just, like, have another art. And do these guys even like each other? They are yelling at each other all the way.
Paul:The bromance, Darren, that's the brounce.
Darren:And being like, I'm gonna kill you. I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna. I love you, man. It's like what I was gonna say.
Paul:Yeah. It shows the love at some point.
Darren:Yeah. And then, you know, then obviously there's the representation of sex workers, which is quite sweet. And.
But then she takes the escort, takes her friend on a job. How is that gonna. What?
Paul:But she's not.
Marc:She's not. She's not one of us. She's like, she'll be fine.
Darren:Yeah.
Paul:Like what?
Darren:It's like, there's so many.
Paul:That was a random bit when I was making my notes. I'm like, that's a bit random, but, yeah, I'll go with it.
Darren:There's so many kind of confusing bits where they're. They. The inherent homophobia and kind of sexism I found uncomfortable. The. The. The amount of violence and people they kill in order to get there.
There's one point when the bad guy was like, you're killing too many people. Watch this. We're making a mess. Then opens fire into a cafe.
Paul:That's 80. Actions movie 101, Darren.
Darren:It is. I know, I know. I just. I know. I feel. I Honestly, I feel 47 years old. I feel it. Like, I love. I absolutely love this. At. What was it? 95.
Marc:Yeah.
Darren:15. 16. I would have been 18. Freaking loved it. Loved Will Smith at the time.
Paul:This was his big breakout, don't forget.
Marc:Yeah.
Paul:Before this, like, he was a TV show star in Fresh Prince Villa.
Marc:Yeah.
Paul:Bella. And this was the thing that was like, yeah. Oh, he's a movie star.
Darren:Loved him.
Marc:State was a few years after this. And then many black and stuff.
Darren:Yeah. Loved Michael Bay, you know, love with the Rock. I Think is great, you know, Watch a ton. Armageddon. Armageddon is one long music video, but it's. It's.
I remember loving it when it came out, so. Yeah, I know. Kind of. What do we miss? I think there's. I think the ideology of this movie, which is, you know, masculine violence is. Right.
Women are sex objects, and there's the homophobia and sexism isn't within it. Now, that's fine to a certain extent.
To put into a movie, you're allowed to explore negative themes and stuff, but I'm just at the age where I'm a bit uncomfortable with it.
Marc:It's like how it's portrayed, though, isn't it?
Darren:Yeah, totally. And there's no. There's no character art redeeming it. They don't kind of learn or anything or. There's not like maturity or. Yeah, and that's it.
I mean, it's called Bad Boys. It's like. Yeah, you boys are ridiculous.
Marc:Ridiculous boys.
Darren:This is. This is like an adolescent wet dream.
Paul:What do you mean? There's no learning? He learns how to drive fast when he needs to.
Darren:Oh, yeah, that does. Oh, my God.
Paul:That's how you drive.
Darren:That is how you drive. Literally, the character arc in this, he learns how to drive fast. And that whole bit when he's got a trust fund has nothing to the story.
That's not character. That's literally.
Marc:It's showing the opposites of them. Like, he's come from money. He's got me behind him. He's got nothing. He hasn't got a pot to pit in.
Darren:Yeah. And Will has given them no money. Yeah. It's just a reason to give him a Porsche.
Paul:It looked good.
Darren:It did. It's just one of the finest cars, I think, in existence. I think it's amazing.
Marc:Okay, let's round out this section with Paul's facts of the day.
Paul:Facts of the day. Okay, so the two leads were originally intended for Eddie Murphy and Wesley Snipes.
Marc:Now that would have been interesting.
Darren:That would have. That would have been interesting. That. Mainly because that's an odd couple.
Marc:Yeah. I can't find imagine them being as funny either.
Paul:No, no, it might have been a different.
Marc:The charisma would have been as between the two of them.
Paul:Yeah.
Marc:But maybe we're wrong. What do we know?
Paul:The opening scene, I alluded to this before, but the opening scene where Mike and Marcus held up by two carjackers, that was shot in Los Angeles weeks after principal photography had been completed because Columbia and Michael Bay wanted a Better, more comedic introduction to the two lead characters than what was in the original film.
Marc:Yeah, it did set them up for, like, pretty much. Look, this is what these guys are about.
Paul:Yeah.
Marc:This is their relationship.
Darren:And they're formidable. They can deal with things.
Paul:Yeah.
Darren:Also that wheels are exactly. Mike. Mike Lau is at womanizing. Oh, there's a woman. I'm a trained professional cop, but here's a woman walking past me. Same in this.
Marc:The woman is, like, spilled his chips on his lap. The next minute he's like, shit, he's got a gun to some guy's head.
Paul:That's okay. These are all good. The scene in the convenience store where the clerk puts the gun their heads and yells to telling them, freeze, mother bitches.
Is also improvised. And they came up with, no, you freeze, bitch. Now back up, put the gun down and get me a pack of Tropical Fruit Bubblicious and some Skittles.
So that I figured that had been improvised because that's very much their humor. So on the commentary of the film, Michael Bay mentions that he had a fight with Will Smith near the end of production.
It was one of the last shots in the movie where Bay wanted Smith to say, hey, man, I love you to Martin Lawrence. He felt it would show Smith's character's softer side.
But the actor decided on the day they were going to shoot it that he didn't want to say the line. And Bay remembers that the argument lasted an hour and a half, te Leone and Lawrence joining in.
At some point, Bay finally relented, saying Smith didn't have to say the line. He then pointed to the setting sun and explained to Smith, that's motherfucking nature and she's not motherfucking waiting for us.
They shot the scene and Smith said the line. So that sounds like Michael Bay directing. It is finest.
Darren:It also sounds again like homophobia. Again, I'm not gonna say I love you. Why? This is your partner. You guys, you do love each other.
Paul:And they do say in subsequent bad boy movies quite a lot as well. You know, that buddy kind of thing. Anyway, the film's production was extremely grueling for Michael Bay due to script problems.
Bay would later call the screenplay a piece of shit. He doesn't like to hold back, does he make.
And budget limits often meant Bay would only get a single day to shoot action sequences that would have taken four days of work on more valuablely funded projects. Bay sacrificed part of his salary, so a key sequence during the film's climax wasn't eliminated.
And that's What I've seen on some of the behind the scenes of Michael Bay does shoot very quickly, apparently. Like, you need to be ready to go, because he comes on and he's like, boom, let's shoot this thing. So maybe that's where it started from.
Maybe not having the budget and stuff on Bad Boys is where he started shooting quickly. There you go. There's some facts of the day.
Marc:Cool. Right, let's move on to test of time. So this. This is what, 30 years old?
Darren:They're still making a mark.
Marc:Not this one.
Paul:I was gonna say, you know, this kind of one came out last year, still going Bad Boys for life.
Marc:This movie is 30 years old.
Darren:Oh, no. See that.
Paul:That can be right maths. Can it? 30.
Marc:30 years old. Okay, so what would happen if it was released today? What would happen if someone said, delete the franchise and start again?
Someone had the idea for this first one.
Darren:I think it'd be the same. The critics would be the same.
Paul:Yeah, I think you're right. Maybe the tweak some bits so it's less in your face with some of the stuff you were discussing earlier. Maybe they'd turn some of that down.
But in terms of if it's an action comedy blockbuster, it's going to have very much similar patterns. Probably like the later segments, the later chapters in the Bad Boys films.
Darren:Have you seen the later ones? Yeah. Does the representation get better, do you think?
Paul:Yeah.
Darren:I mean, the second one, they go to another country and start blowing that one.
Paul:I was going to say this. I'm saying, yes, but I'm imagining you watching them going, this is. This is.
Darren:Don't they drive a Humvee to, like, a shanty town where there's a place to like and there's kids and children and their dad.
Paul:There's probably problematic stuff in all of them because they're all this kind of crazy, but, you know, they'll drive through the middle of the town in the city and Bad Boys 3, blowing stuff up with machine guns. And, you know, how many people have they killed in the city while they're having that chase? I don't know. So some. Some things don't change.
But for me, this is where I kind of suspend the disbelief. There's realistic movies. Yeah, okay. That's very much a reality.
And then there's the Michael Bay reality, which is stretched and it's sort of very much. This isn't realistic at all.
Darren:The technical term is diegesis.
Paul:Oh. They go.
Darren:The universe, the world the film exists in.
Paul:Yeah, it's movie world. It's action movie world. It's not reality. It's like when something blows up in a Jerry Anderson Thunderbirds thing and it blows up like 17 times.
Darren:But I think we haven't seen the Rock for a while. But I don't think it's very masculine movie, body movie. Again, good chemistry between Sean Connery and Nicholas Cage.
But I don't remember the homophobia or the sexism in that movie. I mean, there's very few female characters.
Paul:But I think if you watch again, you'll find some bits because I'm thinking of some now. But. But maybe that, that.
Darren:Oh, but those guys are morons.
Paul:Yeah.
Darren:It's not the leads. Yeah, those guys deserve to die.
Paul:There's bit. There's bits of it in sort of the action films. Isn't that in the genre? In that genre. But it's the suspending, the disbelief of.
Marc:I wonder, I wonder if we. What we're going to say that. Because we seem to say there's a lot that, yes, if it was remade or if it was adapted, maybe it would work.
But what if we say, what if it was discovered? This was a lost movie, it was just governed, it was just put out as it is.
Darren:I think it would do well. I think a lot of people overlook the things that I, I brought up. I don't think we all watch a different movie.
It's like we said, we did an episode of Drop Dead Tread before. We actually worked out the kinks in this and there was so much stuff that we would have missed as a kid.
Marc:So much I missed in that because, yeah, I sent it. Since it came out.
Darren:We all see the movie we want to see and, you know, particularly if you're, you know, a straight man watching this, you're going to love it, like, because you're not picking up and all that other stuff.
Paul:Yeah, thanks. Yeah.
Marc:Right, let's move on to takeaways. So what did we get out of this film? I'm going to go to Darren first.
Darren:Oh, okay. Yeah, I like, I loved it when I was a teenager. I was in pain watching this. I nearly gave up halfway through because it's, it's.
This should be a 90 minute movie. This is like an action movie. Should be 90 minutes.
We get in, we get out, and it's lush and you could, you could cut like 30 minutes from this movie and you. It wouldn't impact a bit bloated. Bloated is a good word. And ridiculous. Like there's a bit where they go to the nightclub he's off, he's off.
Paul:What have you done?
Darren:And they should be looking for like the bad guy and Will Smith is just flirting with a stripper and then.
Paul:But that's the comedy of it because Mike Lawrence is getting beaten up.
Darren:Being beaten up in a gents which you can see through the aquarium. Like all these people just taking shits and pissing.
Paul:Now I made a note about this because I did find it weird how you had. It was the most manky gents toilets ever. But then they had candles and like ornamental things. And I'm like, what is this place?
Darren:Yeah. It's just that that didn't work for me. And there were so many other little bits. Like even the bit where he walks up and he's like I'm Mike Lowry.
Whatever.
Paul:Lowry.
Darren:Yeah. And she said you were not how I expect it. Arrest her. She is a witness to a crime. Take custardy. Like why'd you let this go on so long? She.
She doesn't get to dictate policy. Put them in cuffs.
Paul:This is again where I'm gonna plead. It's movie, it's not realistic.
Darren:She was also a bit bland.
Paul:TI Leone.
Darren:Yeah. She had no car or she had nothing to work with other than wearing like skimpy clothes.
Paul:And yeah, I don't mind her in.
Darren:It, but she gets turned on by the guns and the danger. And then it's like playing around with the idea of having sex with Mighty Night, his character. Yeah. And then he doesn't.
He thinks that Will Smith's his wife. So he charges over there and he's like, what you doing? I would never do that. Oh yeah.
I'm gonna forget everything I just heard on the phone and just go running away again. There was. It was. This is ridiculous. It's. It's Michael Bay. Not his worst. His first kind of Transformers gets a bit sillier.
Paul:Yeah.
Darren:Michael Bay is a phenomenal director at times. He's put that. He's put his leash on now. And there's a movie called 13 Hours which is just superb. I think it's his best work. Very mature.
But this was an adolescent boys kind of fever dream of. That's what it felt like. It felt like a 9 year old.
I was playing with the action figures and they had like a toy Porsche and like a Lego town and was just blowing stuff up and running around. The same third rate dialogue and bad 80s kind of puns at the end. Because none of those things make me laugh.
Paul:All of those things Darren said make.
Marc:The things you Love, Yeah.
Paul:Hey, subjective, right?
Darren:But I don't. It's been a while. Like, it's been a while since Lethal Weapons. It's been a while since I've seen like 48 hours. Beverly Hills Cop.
I've watched probably more recently and I still like that, but. But then that plays around with, you know, stereotypes quite a bit, but it's usually doing a character.
Marc:Yeah, I enjoyed it. It was kind of. Some of the things you said, Darren, I kind of agree with, but it was just. For me, there's the nostalgia of it.
Paul:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Put me down. I remember this and it made me feel certain ways, but it's just. For me, it doesn't. It doesn't hold up. It's a bit.
It's a bit adolescent, a bit basic, a bit cliched.
Darren:I nearly thought at the end they were going to let him live. They're like, no, no, you know, we're going to take him in. And he said, no, it's not over yet. Oh, we shot him now. Now I can go home and be happy.
Paul:That's what you want from an 80s action movie, right?
Darren:An 80s action movie? Yes, Paul, that's what I want. Not from a 90s action. Yeah, but.
Marc:Yeah, just not this one. For me, it was. I'm glad I've watched it again. I'm glad you chose it because it's gone. Take me back down memory lane.
But, yeah, it didn't really hold up for me. It was lacking a bit in substance and bloated.
Darren:Like I said, I can see why it's good fun. And I have no. I'm not judging anyone who likes it. I'm not judging.
Marc:I tried to not take it too seriously because it doesn't take itself seriously, but there was a lot of in it. And I was like, that doesn't really work. Part of it I liked, parts of it I didn't.
Paul:I've took in everything you've said. I understand everything.
Marc:He's going, la, la, la, la, la, la, la. Sticking his fingers in his ears.
Paul:No, no, I.
Darren:Same with 80s power dress, shoulder.
Paul:Oh, it's her from CSI, isn't it? Mark Hagen. I can't pronounce her name. E. I'm gonna bust you down.
Darren:I'm like, how about you help each other to solve the crime?
Paul:But no, I understand what you've sort of said and it makes sense, but at the end of the day, I've still got that nostalgia factor with it. I put it on and I'm like, bad boys, man.
Darren:And in the Comment, kind of. If we can find anything that makes us happy, cling to it with both hands.
Paul:It's the escapism thing. So with movies, for me especially, it's very much that escapism quality.
So sometimes I like to watch something that's realistic, and I'm like, oh, yes. That's how they would do it in reality. And other times, you don't care. I don't care.
Marc:Yeah, it's like, for me, like, Fast and Furious.
Paul:Yeah. Like, I just. Yeah, sometimes a lot of you just.
Marc:Want over the top. Ridiculous. What the.
Paul:But, like, you think of the paperwork John McClane's gonna have to do after the Nakatomi Plaza. But no, it's Die Hard you're watching. You're like, that's what it is. So I'm a bit like that with Bad Boys.
It takes me and, you know, it's one of the films me and my brother used to watch when I like you say when you were a certain age. My brother's older than me, so that was one of them sort of boys films that we would watch together.
So it kind of takes me back into the nostalgic place as well.
Darren:But I was playing a game the other day, could Sea of Thieves. And I was like, sailing a sloop. And there's other players. It's like online game. And this other player ship came behind me and started attacking me.
And I was like, I don't want this. But they played Bad Boys to give the mic, and they're like, bad, Bad Boys. What you gonna do? And I was like, okay, that's actually. Actually kind of.
Paul:It's really good.
Marc:They laughed you into submission.
Darren:Okay, that is quality. That is.
Paul:Yeah. So me. It's an escapist, fun film of, you know, of its time.
Darren:But, dude, thank you for choosing it. The fact we just went from he's got Fridays at Bad Boys.
Paul:It's a good mix, right?
Darren:Yeah, it's gonna be interesting what we got next week.
Marc:Okay, let's move on to part three of the podcast. In part three, we have Worth the Watch, the listener lounge, and next week's movie.
So in Worth a watch, whoever's movie choice it was will give us a suggestion of something that's caught the eye. Be on tv. Could be a TV series, a documentary, or a movie.
Then we head to the listen lounge where we'll answer some of your questions, read some of your comments and emails, and after, obviously, in next week's movie, we will reveal what we shall be breaking down next episode. So worth watching.
Paul:Paul Hello.
Marc:How much thought has gone into this? How many times have you changed your mind?
Paul:Quite a few. Made a few choices. But then I came up with a clear winner, which goes into all the stuff. We were just talking about escapism and enjoying that.
So this is something I started watching during lockdown, which obviously was quite a difficult time for most people in different ways. I was no different to that.
Marc:Now, the beginning of five years ago.
Paul:I know, right? That's terrifying. Terrifying. But in the middle of lockdown, my brother said, oh, you gotta watch the show.
I was like, okay, so if you're familiar with the Karate Kid films, you'll probably know where I'm gonna go with this. And it's available on Netflix. It's called Cobra Kai.
Marc:I have not seen it.
Paul:Okay, I will talk about it as if you know nothing about it.
Marc:Have you seen it?
Paul:You might.
Darren:Yeah, I watched the first two seasons and then I realized I was 47.
Paul:If you want something, it was. If you want something fun to watch, kids, I'm telling you, Cobra Kai is the way to go. Is it cheesy? Absolutely. Is it joyful? Absolutely.
It basically picks up the Karate Kid saga. So you've got Ralph Macchio and his nemesis, if that's what you want to call him, William Zabka, from the first Karate Kid film.
And it picks up all these years later, and you kind of see the first season especially and, you know, kind of through the rest of the seasons, too. You see it through William Zabka's eyes as Johnny Lawrence's character. I think there's six seasons, and the last. The last episodes have just dropped.
So it's now a complete thing. It's.
Marc:It's finished now.
Paul:Is it finished in its entirety?
Darren:Yeah.
Paul:They're going to do maybe more spin offs and who knows what. And Ralph Macchio is going to turn up in a film with Jackie Chan later this year called Karate Kid Legacy or something like that.
Legacies Legacy, I don't know.
Correct me in the chat, but Cobra Kai, if you want, kind of just a fun escapism thing, it brings in the kids, if that's what you want to call them, like the next generation of Karate Kids. And there's back and forth. Are they gonna be friends? Are they not gonna be friends? Are they enemies now? Are they not?
And then the big baddies come back from the.
Darren:Every movie, right?
Paul:Films. Yeah. And in some ways, Karate Kid 3 is seen as not good, but this almost makes it.
Darren:But that was the one when he runs out into the rain and Fights electricity, isn't it?
Paul:No, it's Kraken 2 where he fights the rain. Okay, yeah, yeah. Karate Kid 3 is where Terry Silver shows up.
Darren:Okay.
Paul:And tries to lure him to Cobra Kai, clearly. Oh yeah, I'm big into this, but it kind of makes all of all of them legit in this franchise.
Darren:It's a great.
Paul:I'm making it almost sound not fun, but it is fun. It's almost like Power Rangers at times. It's that daft. But it's still really fun and the character development's great. But yeah, it's a fun show.
And like I say, it's now all available on Netflix. So I'd recommend Cobra Kai if you want something that's light hearted, daft.
And especially if you've seen and loved the original Karate Kid movies, I think you'll get a kick out.
Marc:Pun intended.
Paul:I didn't even mean that. But yeah, a kick out of this. Not an illegal one like the crane kick, which is debated muchly in the Cobra Kai series. That's my one to watch.
Marc:That takes us on to next week's movie.
But before we go to discuss what could possibly be next week's movie, I want to say if you want to help us, the best way you can help us is by giving us a rating, a review in any app that you're listening to, or just share the show. We need you guys to help us grow this show. So just the best thing you can do.
If you can think of just one person who would like this podcast or this particular episode, send them our way. We will be forever grateful. Okay, it's time to do March's Listener Choice. So we had a record amount of requests.
This time we put them into a spinny wheel. I don't know what else to call it. It's a spinny wheel. We couldn't decide.
Paul:So yeah.
Marc:So we let it just happen by accident. See if you can hear this in my microphone.
Paul:Oh, you got the theme tune. Yeah.
Marc:It's spinning. It's spinning. It's spinning. We are on, Tom.
Paul: we have got Con air. Con Air: Darren:That's another movie I haven't seen since the 90s, probably.
Marc:Yeah, I've not seen that for a long, long time.
Paul:I've seen it. It's been a while. Same.
Marc:Yeah, it's a classic.
Darren:It's a good cast.
Marc:Yes, definitely.
Paul:Who sent us in Con Air then?
Marc:Ryan Hogarth, a good friend of mine from a long, long time ago. He sent us in a big. I'll read it out later. Okay, so some of the entries that we had were also the Substance by Ben Nicholl. Haven't seen that.
Darren:No, but it's Demi Moore, I think.
Paul:Oh, it's new.
Marc: Yeah, yeah, yeah.: Paul:Also new.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Who's in that?
Paul:Oh, I want to say Ralph Fiennes.
Marc:Rebecca Schultz, the wife I was gonna recommend.
Paul:Sounds familiar.
Marc: Recommended unleashed: Darren:Oh, nice.
Marc:Have you heard of that one? Do you know it?
Paul:I had a look on IMDb because, you know why?
Marc:Do you know why she's recommended that? Because she was in it.
Paul:Really? Oh, no way.
Marc:For like half a second.
Darren:Jet Li.
Marc:Yeah.
Darren:Okay, cool.
Marc:Yeah. Glasgow. Yeah, yeah. That's her claim to fame.
Paul:That is a good claim.
Marc: dy Minette, The Secret Window: Paul:The Secret Window.
Marc: Ollie cake, Nickel Boys,:You're not in front of your microphone, Darren.
Darren:I guess it's. It's Guy from Blade Runner and stuff. Ryan Gosling.
Marc: anny Roberts, American Psycho: Paul:Yeah, I still haven't seen that yet. I've seen lots of clips of it, but I've not actually seen it.
Marc: The Watcher or Just Watcher,: Darren:That would be cool.
Paul:But a Hitchcock bit of classic, though.
Marc:Joe Dawson, Star Wars A New Hope.
Darren:Yeah, I just. I know that we have to begin.
Marc:The Star wars journey.
Darren:That's one of the reasons I teach films, is I know that movie very, very well. I'm sure I wouldn't even need to rewatch it.
Paul:I feel like if me and Darren got going, we could probably reenact it right now.
Darren:I also feel that it's been overanalyzed already.
Marc:There'll be our. Our skill set, our challenge to see if we can make people maybe spot things that they didn't know or see in a different way.
Facts that you could find, Paul, that were not already out there. Very, very. Not very well known.
Paul:I feel like most of the facts people know, but I do know some very really geeky Star wars trivia, so maybe there is facts there. And I'd probably end up doing Alec Guinness impressions and things.
Marc:There we go. So next week's choice is chosen by you guys. It was chosen by Ryan Hogarth, he's chose Con Air next week. All right.
I am looking forward to watching that again. I'm really looking forward to watching that again. Okay, there we go. So if you want to get in touch with us here, you can email us.
Hello, Movies in a nutshell dot com. Our links to the show, our socials are in the show notes. You can get in touch with us, send us a message, send us some abuse. If you.
If you want to do that as well, you can.
Paul:No, you don't.
Darren:I'm amazed we've gone this far without getting anyone.
Marc:I know, like we're inciting your opinion of Wicked is.
Paul:I feel like there's enough of that aggression in the world.
Darren:Yeah, Paul really doesn't like conflict, so can you just direct it?
Marc:Paul's too nice. He's too thin skinned. He can't take it. He'll cry.
Paul:You know, it's like, that's your opinion and we've got ours.
Marc:Plus.
Paul:Fine, let's all live together.
Marc:How does he know there hasn't already been in. We just haven't.
Darren:We haven't shown it to him.
Marc:We've shielded you from it.
Paul:Oh, thank you.
Marc:No, there hasn't been any. It's all been good so far because everyone seems to like what we're doing, so that's good. Thanks. Okay, this episode is officially over.
This is Mark saying goodbye and Darren.
Darren:Saying bye for now.
Paul:And from now on, that's how you drive. That's how you drive.
