Bad Company

I don't really know what I expected from this film, but I certainly found much more than I had been looking for. Given that it stars Chris Rock, I did expect a great deal of irreverent, silly comedy. What I found, instead, was an interesting spy film and a very, very odd buddy picture.

The acting from both Rock and Hopkins is exceptional. The plot, while a bit thin, is interesting.

The film pulled me in and held me from beginning to end.

When does a knighted actor collect a paycheck? When he acts benightedly in a cliched spy thriller that is a virtual textbook of Hollywood expectations, right down to the scruffy mid-eastern terrorists and the oversized red digital readout on a nuclear bomb.

Anthony Hopkins plays a CIA veteran who must train a streetwise kid, played by Chris Rock, how to act like a real agent in 9 days. You can guess the outcome; in fact you can guess every scene before it unfolds. Movies like this make me know I couldn't do reviewing for a day job-I'd have to see bombs like this everyday. Did I say bomb again? Did we just have one come to America in `Sum of All Fears'?

I am committed to saying something favorable for all movies if I can. Hopkins is always interesting to watch: he underplays here with a `sang froid' that would make Hannibal Lecter proud. The bad side of `Bad Company' is the bug-eyed, monotone, hysterical Chris Rock, who may have been medicated for this role because I didn't have to cover my ears this time-I just bore up under his boring delivery.

Brooke Smith, who was the captured girl in `Silence of the Lambs', plays Hopkins' partner. `Lambs' this is not.

The film moves rapidly enough for espionage junkies. There, I said 2 good things. The movie still is `bad' company for the serious filmgoer.

This film, as far as action films goes, is really not all that bad. I normally don't like the genre too much for it's continuance of formula, but this film was a surprise. The choreography was very well done and there were some good one-liners contributing to some amusement along the way. Anthony Hopkins and Chris Rock act well in this film, alongside the twisted Russian mafia boss whom was brilliant, also to be found acting in the superb Guy Richie film 'Snatch'. The photography of Prague was stunning, great camera angles and a dramatic mood portrayed well in this beautiful city.

Regarding the Trevor Rabin track 'BMBBO'... I loved immediately it for its grace and sombre melancholic mood when I heard it in the film, but was so mistaken when finally getting hold of the track... what trickery! The beautiful strings and violin, the elegance and subtlety, gets butchered a minute in by tacky electronica. what a shame to have this masterpiece ruined. In the film obviously adaptations were made for particular scenes and I got the high-octane 'alternative' version, as released on the CD, which by the way, sounds like something from the 80's, a Jean-Michelle Jare lasertropic overdose.

Chris Rock is hilarious in this film. Anthony Hopkins is good too.

It includes many funny scenes and the action is also good. But the plot it's nothing special at all and the film is not very bad but not very good either. If Chris Rock were not in it, it would be bad. I would rate it a 6/10

In Prague, the CIA secret agent Kevin Pope (Chris Rock) is killed in a mission with Oakes (Anthony Hopkins). They were trying to recover a nuclear bomb from the hands of some mercenaries. In order to proceed with the operation, Jake Hayes (Chris Rock), twin of Kevin, is recruited by CIA to act as if he were his brother. Jake is a rascal ticker scalper and his dead brother was an exquisite man. The CIA agents have nine day to make Jake as refined as he brother was. Although having a plot very predictable and full of cliches, this movie is a funny action movie, almost a comedy. Therefore, it objective of entertainment is accomplished. My vote is seven.