When their late police captain gets linked to drug cartels, wisecracking Miami cops Mike Lowrey and Marcus Burnett embark on a dangerous mission to clear his name. I think we can all agree that it was a big mistake not calling this fourth installment “Bad Boys 4 Life” and instead awarding that title to the third film, more or less. Regardless, the Bad Boys movies have always been fun, with my favorite being the obnoxiously bonkers second film. While this fourth film in the series doesn’t reach the levels of unhinged chaos that Bad Boys II embraced, it still manages to further the story and characters in ways we haven’t seen before. Without the lovable chemistry between Will Smith (Mike Lowrey) and Martin Lawrence (Marcus Burnett), none of these movies would work, and thankfully, neither of them have missed a single beat. The movie does something really interesting and new with Mike and Marcus. Whereas Mike is usually the calm, cool, and collected type and Marcus the super stressed out family man, this movie flips the script, with Mike getting married, having panic attacks and Marcus being completely chilled out and fearless. This sort of switch in the dynamic actually really works and makes for some genuinely laugh out loud moments, especially during a few of the action sequences. Not all of the humor lands, but for the most part I was either grinning or laughing just from the amount of energy both Smith and Lawrence put in here. I would go as far as to say that Martin Lawrence is the standout, for there is an extended scene where he’s on drugs that was genuinely hysterical.
Returning is Jacob Scipio as Armando, who was the main antagonist in the third film and revealed to be Mike Lowrey’s son. I worked with Scipio on Expendables 4 back in 2021 and I was able to tell that he is totally capable of holding his own in the action, and my goodness, there is a prison fight here that goes so hard, hits so heavy, that even I felt it. Armando has great character development in this film and builds a somewhat meaningful relationship with his estranged father in both funny and dramatic ways. Much of the plot revolves around a conspiracy regarding John Pantoliano’s Captain Howard who was killed in the third movie and how his character might have been in cahoots with the cartels. It gets a little needlessly convoluted and preposterous at times, with characters blurting clunky exposition to move the story along. As someone who has lived in Miami Beach practically my whole life, the stylization of the city is very modern and pops out pretty nicely, from the beautiful scenery of Ocean Drive to the rooftop lounges where the cartels operate. There are quite a few cameos in here including a hilarious scene with DJ Khaled that got big laughs from the audience. Speaking of which, there is one sequence involving Marcus’ son in law Reggie that is so awesome, so crowd pleasing, and so funny that it’s worth the price of admission alone. I really dug what the cinematographer did with filming the shootouts, as it was shown in a behind the scenes video that cameras were mounted onto Will Smith and Martin Lawrence so when they threw their guns to each other or reloaded, the camera would do a wild flip and a POV movement with the guns. Pretty neat.
The stakes are fairly personal and it’s nothing we haven’t seen before, but it really comes down to the charisma and banter between Smith and Lawrence that shows neither of them are phoning it in. The villain “Banker” played by Eric Dane isn’t anything three dimensional, but he does the job of being an intimidating lead henchman. Mister Fantastic himself, Ioan Gruffud plays a sleazy politician quite well, even if the direction they took with his character was rather predictable. There is a hilarious sequence involving Mike and Marcus coming across a couple of rednecks and I’d say for what it’s worth, the racial humor in that segment was well played, if not genius in parts. The movie ends on a mostly conclusive note, however, it does leave the door open for the story to be continued, as there are some loose ends that don’t get tied up when the credits roll. If you don’t like the vulgar juvenile comedy of these movies and weren’t crazy about the first three, I would definitely sit this one out, because there is no shortage of that raunchy humor to be found here. I still think the franchise peaked at Bad Boys II, because that movie is just so ridiculously chaotic and full of frenetic Michael Bayisms, but the third film and this fourth installment prove to be worthy sequels nonetheless. Overall, while it has a predictable story and some contrived elements, Bad Boys: Ride or Die still manages to be a fun turn your brain off summer popcorn action flick with reliably entertaining chemistry between Will Smith and Martin Lawrence and plenty of laugh out loud moments.
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