National Security

I thought the movie started off very good with a serious tone of intrigue and suspense. That's what attracted me to watch it while channel surfing.

Although it's the first film I've seen with Steve Zahn, I thought he was genuine in his portrayal of emotion over the death of his fellow officer. His loyalty and respect for his friend and partner showed in every aspect of his acting.

Enter Martin Lawrence . . . then it became too silly.

As for, Bill Duke and Eric Roberts, they're always great in my opinion. Seasoned and mature actors.

I just can't take Martin Lawrence seriously. He's a funny comedian, but this type of silly slapstick takes away from the suspense of the film. The whole "bee" story, police academy farce, as well as the girl with the handcuffs, along with a few more so-called "funny" scenes, should have been re-written to better fit the plot. It's cute for situation comedy, but not for a movie that starts on such a serious tone. It's misleading and kills the suspense.

The movie would have been much better without it.

The movie is basically your run of the mill Police comedies. Where the two main characters are inept but come good and get results ( except in this case they are security guards). It's light hearted and not a bad effort. What does let it down badly are the racist jokes about caucasians. The film probably would not have even been aired if the jokes were reversed and made about other races.

The film features two guys who are security guards teaming up to stop something foul, so it is sort of different I guess; however, the John Candy and Eugene Levy security guard duo movie is superior. I do like Steve Zahn and he makes this film a lot better than it has any right to be; yet, from a lot of posters and such, you would think he is a secondary character at best to Martin Lawrence who is front and center of all the promotional stuff for this film. Seems a bit unfair, considering the movie does actually center on Zahn's character more than Lawrence, who is funny in this, don't get me wrong, he just seems to be the second guy in this film.

The story in this one, Earl, played by Zahn and his partner are police and they end up in a very dangerous setting where Earl's partner is killed. Earl catches Lawrence's character after getting the boot from the police academy trying to reach in his car because he locked the keys in. Due to each other's situation at the moment, their meeting gets blown out of proportion and Earl ends up fired and imprisoned for beating Martin Lawrence, though in reality it was a bee sting that got Lawrence! Soon, Earl is out of prison and using any connection he can to try and find his partner's killer and soon he and Lawrence are reunited and find themselves in a plot involving some space aged metal!

As I said, Steve Zahn carries the film with Lawrence adding a bit of humorous touches here and there. I think they went overboard in how they got Earl terminated from his job, but I was glad everything worked out a bit in the end. Martin at times can be a bit much, so I am glad the focus is on Zahn as you almost want to tell Martin to settle down a bit with the ranting.

So, the film had its moments and was a bit funny. The action was pretty good in it too and probably overlooked as everyone is thinking this is strictly a comedy. One of those films my wife picked for movie night that was not too bad to watch; however, the film is not anything I would like to see again either unless it just happened to be on for some background noise. Wish Steve Zahn was in more stuff, because I always find him very funny as an actor; of course, these days you do not see much of him or Lawrence in films.

I'm always amazed when I look back at how underrated this movie is. 6/10 is understandable, but anything lower is just now fair.

There are mountains of good comedy within the show, mostly prompted by Martin Lawrence's antics.

I always look back at how many jokes people remember from a comedy and if it's more than 2, it usually means it was successful. They may have not been PC, they may not have been witty, but they got the job done.

I've seen a lot more critically acclaimed movies that I struggle to remember at least one funny scene from.

Decent action sequences, and Lawrence/Zahn make a good team. A poor man's Gibson/Glover.

However, EVERY joke being racial got tiresome QUICK. From the preview (and EVERY other Martin movie I've seen) I figured as much. Too bad I wasn't surprised.

Worth the $2 I spent on rental, but if I spent $8 to see it first-run I'd have been sorely disappointed.

6/10