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Support Black Action Heroes at Your Own Risk
By Tameka Bradley Hobbs
October 2003
Usually, I love action flicks. I am unwavering in the
face of multiple explosions and fearless in the face of
large body counts. The more crashes, the better. Blood
and brutality are par for the course. Lately, however,
I’ve been overwhelmed. First, it was the Matrix: Reloaded.
The scene where Neo fights a couple hundred Mr. Smiths
left me tired. It was simply too much action to follow.
After awhile, my adrenaline rush peaked and plateaued.
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Bad Boys II followed not long afterwards and with it so much action it made me weary.
More mindless gore and fiery flashes than a video game, too many uncalled-for and never
loaded-to-be-fired bullets, and nowhere near enough witty banter or good dialogue to cover
it up. I was left numb and having to constantly renegotiate in my suspended disbelief for
the sake of entertainment.
There is an unspoken contract between movie makers and movie goers initiated the moment the
cashier swipes your VISA/Master Card/American Express and you purchase your overpriced tickets;
the moviegoer signs on to a mental expedition of sorts. He or she is taken on a journey, during
which a story is told. The object is for the movie to leave the viewer satisfied, either laughing,
scared, sad, or enlightened, depending on the genre of film. This unspoken contract can be terminated
for many reasons, most deal with misuse of the attention span, fraud or just sorry-ass scripts and
acting . As you may have guessed, the latter two difficulties lead to 1) the story being too long or
uninteresting, or 2) the plot is too incongruous and makes no sense irregardless of the length of the
flick. Unfortunately, Bad Boys II shot itself in the ass on both counts. My problems with the movie
are as follows:
Tameka’s Beef #1: Sorority chics don’t make good cops. Gabrielle Union and a gun go together
like bananas and mayonnaise. Maybe she’s too pretty to play a gritty role believably. I hate to use the
“T” word, but maybe she’s …typecast. After seeing her play the romantic lead or sexy other in, like, EVERY
buppie movie in the past few years, I wasn’t buying that she would mess up her manicure shooting a semi-automatic
weapon. She wasn’t able to fully tap into her inner gansta. Now, Queen Latifah on the other hand, looks like
she would blast a fool. (But then would Will Smith be willing to take all that on?)
Tameka’s Beef #2: A car chase between a 575 Marnello Ferrari and a semi truck carrying a cargo
of 10 other cars should NOT last for 15-20 minutes. Honestly, in the theater, it felt like a half-hour.
By that time, they should have been in the Everglades. The time lapse was only made worse by the corny dialogue.
Tameka’s Beef #3: In an effort to expand Hollywood’s track record of stereotypical exploitation,
the makers of Bad Boys II decided to target the Caribbean this go round. Aside fro, the usual Latino, in this
case Cuban, drug lord, viewers were re-introduced to the Spooky Haitians, revamped for the new millennium
(remember Serpent Under the Rainbow?). It’s a little different this time because some have guns, but the other
signifiers are still there. Aside from speaking that weird Creole, you know they are evil because of the spooky
voodoo candles, crosses, incense, and other suspicious figurines. Add bad dreadlock extensions, stir, and BAMM! …dem bad man.
(And, for the record, I’m getting really tired of the “Dreadlocks = Bad Guy” motif. First, it was Predator, then
Battlefield Earth, and then the albino dread twins in Matrix: Reloaded. Now they actually put the latest addition
in bleached out, blond locks!)
Tameka’s Beef #4: This criticism is not specific to this movie but needs to be said: parents should not
bring young children to the theater for movies rated R or NC-17. It’s bad enough that you would bring them after
a decent bedtime but to a movie full of violence and foul language. (“Oh, s*&!, Mommy! Did you see that?”) There
were enough kids in the theater when I attended to fill a pre-kindergarten classroom. All your grandmothers were
rolling over in their graves. What happened to the good ol’ days when, if you couldn’t get a babysitter, you
stayed at home until the movie came out on VHS (and now DVD), and watched it after the kids went to bed. It’s not
old-fashioned. It’s call responsible parenting.
(Now stepping down from soapbox.)
With all that said, Bad Boys II does delivers some very entertaining moments. My favorite was the
interrogation of Burnett’s daughter’s date, when Will Smith finds his Inner Thug. The film also was a smoke cloud
with a silver lining for the out of shape and cloudy-eyed Martin Lawrence. Smith gets credit for throwing his boy
Martin a bone. From the looks of the lackluster Runteldat concert movie, the brotha been struggling for a little
while now. I was through after Black Knight. That should be a warning to us all never to run in 100 degree weather
because it can really do a number on the cerebellum, specifically the areas of the brain that control discretion and career choice.
An additional bonus was the scrumptious eye-candy of the post-Ali Will Smith. I must admit, that he has earned a ranking
in my Official Book of Sexual Chocolate (My husband, dreadlocks and all, holds down the permanent number one slot. The
others fall in line after that.)
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Tameka Bradley Hobbs
Doctoral Candidate
Department of History
The Florida State University
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