Film / Bad Boys (1995)

"My wife knows I ain't no bitch. I'm a bad boy."

"He steals our shit, kidnaps Julie, shoots at my wife. Oh, we beatin' him down. We beatin' him down!"

— Marcus Burnett

Bad Boys is a 1995 Buddy Cop action film, directed by Michael Bay in his directorial feature debut, and produced by Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer, and starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence.

Marcus Burnett (Lawrence) and Mike Lowrey (Smith) are best friends and detectives in the narcotics division of the Miami-Dade Police Department. They have just completed the biggest bust of their career, having confiscated about $100 million dollars worth of heroin. Which would have probably earned them an award or two...if the heroin wasn't immediately stolen from a supposedly secure police vault. Now the two partners have some investigation to do, while the Internal Affairs Office is threatening to shut down their entire division and Captain Conrad Howard (Joe Pantoliano), their chief, is getting desperate for a breakthrough. Their main suspect is Fouchet (Tchéky Karyo), a French drug lord who's active in their area. Their only lead to him is Julie Mott (Téa Leoni) who recently witnessed her best friend get killed on his orders.

The film gained a cult following and spawned a 2003 sequel, Bad Boys II, which in turn spawned a video game adaptation, Bad Boys: Miami Takedown. A third film called Bad Boys for Life was released in 2020. A fourth film, Bad Boys: Ride or Die is set for release in 2024. A Spin-Off TV series called L.A.'s Finest has also been announced.

Not to be confused with the 1983 film starring Sean Penn.

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Bad Boys contains examples of:

• Actor Allusion:
  • Julie asked Marcus if he "felt funny" and he answers "Well, I'm not a comedian..."
  • Mike Lowrey also came from a privileged background.
• Alliterative Title
• All Men Are Perverts: At the climax, one of Fouchet's goons notices Julie reaching into her bra to try to get the handcuff key she concealed there, and the only thing he can think of is to tell her that if she has an itch there, he can scratch it for her.
• And I'm the Queen of Sheba: Mike and Marcus get carjacked:
  Mike: Let me tell you how bad a day you're having: right now you're jacking a couple of cops.
  White Carjacker: Oh, yeah? Well, I'm a stand-up comedian. And I SUCK! That's why I need your car.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: A convenience store clerk mistakes Detectives Burnett and Lowery for robbers and holds them at gunpoint. When they turn the tables on the clerk and draw their own guns, they say the following:
  Mike: Now back up, put the gun down, and get me a pack of Tropical Fruit Bubblicious.
  Marcus: And some Skittles.
• Artistic License – Law: When Sanchez and Ruiz arrest the new henchmen that his first job for Fouchet was to watch Marcus's house, he has a legal right to an attorney before and while being interrogated by them.
• Ax-Crazy: Fouchet's plan seemed to involve killing everyone he encountered. His first reaction when the cops arrive at the end? Shoot his partner. He's so violent and trigger happy, that he darkens the tone of the film and causes it to lose any sense of comedy when he is on screen.
• Bad Boss: Fouchet, a pitiless French drug kingpin who orchestrates several pretty unnecessary murders. He masterminds the theft of millions of dollars worth of heroin from a police station evidence lock up. To that end, he has one of his men dress up as a police officer, and then kills him in order to create a distraction. When Eddie, who helped him set the heist up, decides to party with some hookers and a tiny portion of the stash, Fouchet kills Eddie, kills his chemistry team for "fucking with my schedule", and murders his buyer when the police interrupt the deal.
• Batter Up!: Julie attacks Marcus with a bat, not believing that he's Mike Lowery.
• Big Bad: Fouchet.
• Big Little Man: A hacker is helping the heroes and gets into an argument with one of them. When he stands up to start shouting, it's revealed that he's much taller than "the short one" who's arguing with him.
• Black and Nerdy: The convict who hacks into databases for the duo. Complete with Urkel glasses. By the sequel he's apparently been released and is either a civilian or got hired by the police.
• Bloodless Carnage: Twice in two different scenes: Fouchet kills Max, right before Julie escapes. And then, a scene later, where Marcus and Julie escape, he kills a thug with a shotgun, and no blood can be seen whatsoever. The rest of the movie though averts this trope.
• Camping a Crapper: Marcus is fighting desperately with a mook in the male toilets while Mike is blissfully enjoying the go-go dancers outside.
• Chekhov's Gun: Julie grabs a key to the handcuffs at Mike's apartment as she's grown tired to being handcuffed to the steering wheel. After being kidnapped and is handcuffed in a car at the hangar, she uses it to uncuff herself when Mike and Marcus comes to rescue her.
• Coincidental Broadcast: Marcus' kids see him and Mike on the news following the car chase. This leads his wife to realise that he lied about going to Cleveland.
• Cold Open: Mike and Marcus are shown busting a carjacking duo before the opening credits.
• Compensating for Something: Marcus calls Mike's Porsche "Just a shiny dick with two chairs".
• Cool Car: Mike Lowrey's 1993 Porsche 911 Turbo 3.6 (less than 1,000 were made) and the AC Cobra 427 driven by Fouchet in the finale car chase.
• Cowboy Cop:
  • Captain Howard on the main characters' professionalism:
    "Ho! What did I say? Did you hear what I said? I heard what I said 'cause I was standing here when I said it! I told you. I told you to secure a witness. Not to shoot up a neighborhood! Not to do another dead body! Just get the dope back and do it quietly."
  • Also mocked when after revealing his plan to catch the bad guy towards the end of the film, Mike exclaims: "My shit always works sometimes!"
• Cup Holders: Marcus complains about Mike's Porsche not having any, which really gets Mike's goat.
• Da Chief: Captain Howard
• Deadpan Snarker: Julie.
  "Gee, Julie, what have you been up to the last couple days? Nothing. Just hanging out, handcuffed to steering wheels."
• Disposable Sex Worker: Fouchet casually murders Max like she was nothing and attempts to silence Julie. If that wasn't enough he then has her madam BEATEN TO DEATH WITH A SLEDGEHAMMER!
• Disproportionate Retribution: Fouchet kills the chemists he hired to cut the dope he stole because, as he bluntly puts it, they "fucked with his schedule" (not taking into consideration that it's very delicate, and explosive, business to cut dope, and Marcus and Mike blowing up all of the ether that the bad guys had purchased to perform said operation probably didn't helped either), and then blows away the dope's buyer for no reason at all other than the man standing in front of Fouchet while a shootout is going on.
• Distracted by the Sexy: Exploited. Some carjackers send a hot girl to distract Mike and Marcus, after which they use their distraction to approach Mike's car and hold them at gunpoint. Later in the movie, when the main duo infiltrate a night club, Mike is entranced by the strippers, prompting Marcus to reprimand him.
• Embarrassing Old Photo: Marcus' wife shows Mike a photo of him with an afro.
• Establishing Character Moment: Mike and Marcus fighting in their very first scene, and then using that fight to get the drop on the two would-be car robbers.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Eddie is shocked when Fouchet shoots the decoy cop and looks away right before Max is shot.
• Exiled to the Couch: After being forced by his captain to escort Julie to safety, Marcus goes home only to be scolded by his wife for reeking of perfume and having no wedding ring on. The next morning, Marcus complains to Mike, mentioning having to sleep the previous night on the couch and being poked by his kids' toys.
• Fat and Skinny: The two carjackers and Fouchet's two dragons.
• French Jerk: Fouchet again. He is a very violent, and we mean murderous, jerk.
• Funny Background Event: While Mike is ogling a stripper, Marcus is getting his ass kicked in the bathroom (visible by an aquarium that quickly gets smashed).
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Fouchet. Never does one of his scenes go by without him getting pissed about something.
• High-Class Call Girl: Max is one and Julie seems well on her way to joining her.
• Hollywood Law: A couple of examples. For starters:
  • There's no way a real police captain would let Mike get involved the case, given that one of the murder victims was a former flame of his.
  • The dope that Marcus and Mike are trying to recover is also baffling. Their career bust occurred years ago, so the dope wouldn't just sit in the evidence locker; it would be taken to heavily guarded covert sites almost immediately after seizure, tested, and then destroyed.
• Honorary Uncle: Mike is this to Marcus's kids.
• Hookers and Blow: Eddie Dominguez celebrates the heist by throwing a party with the stolen heroin and Julie and Max as entertainment. This leads Fouchet to kill him, as "hookers talk".
• I Remember Because...: A variant: "Did you hear what I said? I heard what I said, 'cause I was standing there when I said it."
• Idiot Ball:
  • Julie is offered protective custody and refused it, insisting that she stay at Mike Lowrey's apartment. While there she goes through mug shots and identifies the people involved in Max's murder. Rather than identify them to Mike and Marcus then let the police handle it, she steals a gun from Mike and leaves the sanctuary of the apartment to head to a crowded nightclub so she can go on a one-woman killing spree against a crime syndicate that wants her dead, which would've ended badly for Julie if not for Plot Armor.
  • When Marcus is put in charge of guarding Julie while she's in witness protection he has to leave his family for a few days. Instead of being honest with his wife and telling her he's guarding a witness to a murder, Marcus makes up a lie about having a federal subpoena in Cleveland. She later sees him on TV and assumes he's having an affair.
• Innocent Innuendo: Marcus did not pick the right time to call home to check on his wife and Mike, sparking his jealousy-driven actions in the next scene.
• Internal Affairs: Captain Allison Sinclair instantly acts upon the belief that there were dirty cops involved in Fouchet's operation, which forces Howard, Marcus and Mike to find out who is responsible and fast. At the climax she even enters Howard's office and tells him that his office has been disbanded (which is probably why in the other two films the three of them work on other teams).
• It's Personal: Marcus and Mike chase Fouchet down:
  Marcus: He steals our shit, kidnaps Julie, shoots at my wife. Oh, we beatin' him down. We beatin' him DOWN!
• Jerkass: Besides Fouchet, there's his henchman Casper who makes a migoynistic comment to Max and is constantly rude towards his fellow henchmen (insulting ones weight, complaining when a gunshot gets blood on his jacket, etc.). And upon Julie's kidnapping, Casper openly attempts to grope her ears, much to her disgust.
• Kill It with Fire: Both of the Co-Dragons die this way.
• Knight of Cerebus: Fouchet. There's absolutely nothing funny about him, and every time he appears, the film dramatically loses its comedic beats. With gunfire.
• Leg Focus: Julie's entire wardrobe consists of short skirts that highlight her legs.
• The Load: Julie. She is only tolerated because she is a witness, and even then she drags her feet because she wants to blow Fouchet away herself.
• Made of Explodium: In the car chase scene, Mike throws ether-barrels from a truck. After that he fires at the barrels and they explode. In real life nothing would happen if you shoot at an ether-barrel because a bullet fired on metal wouldn't cause sparks.
• May I Borrow a Cup of Sugar?: Played for laughs when Mike and Marcus enter a residence without a warrant.
  Marcus: (in an exaggerated, nasally "Caucasian" voice): We were wondering if we could borrow a cup of brown sugar...?
• Miranda Rights: Marcus starts with the Miranda Warnings in the car chase climax. But, of course, since Fouchet is in a another car, it's more of a Pre-Mortem One-Liner.
  Mike: Hey man, what are you doin?
  Marcus:' [grimly] Getting it out of the way.
• Miss Kitty: Lois, who runs the escort service Max works for and helps her look for sleazy partners when Mike asks for her help in finding the crooks.
• Mistaken for Gay: Julie thought Marcus was gay from all of Mike's picture at his apartment.
• The Mole: An unwilling example. Francine, the police secretary, was Eddie Dominguez's ex-girlfriend and she was the one leaked narcotics information to Fouchet and Eddie, which led them to seize $100 million of heroin. However, it turns out that Francine was blackmailed by Fouchet and Eddie to leak the information to them because they took nude photos of her and threatened to post the photos at her kids' school that will cause extreme embarrassment to her family if she refuses. Upon being found out by Mike and Marcus, Francine tearfully admits and apologizes for her actions; even Mike himself shows some pity by handing over a handkerchief to Francine so that she can recover from her trauma.
• Mood Whiplash: Julie calls the PD crying about Max's murder, and will only speak to Mike. At which point, Captain Howard and Marcus get into an argument about how to impersonate Mike to keep her on the line.
• Mugging the Monster: The two carjackers at the beginning of the movie had the bad luck of choosing to jack one with Mike and Marcus inside:
  Mike: Let me tell you how bad a day you're having: right now you're jacking a couple of cops.
• Murder Is the Best Solution: Fouchet's only reaction to anything that pisses him off is to growl, pull out his gun and blow it away, even if it doesn't really makes sense. At the climactic gunfight he even kills the man buying his drugs for no apparent reason other than him just being there.
• No Warrant? No Problem!: Lowrey and Burnett are discussing that there appears to be no one home at the house of a suspect, and Mike leans in and opens the door, saying out loud "I tripped, and the door just opened. It's like they wanted us to come in."
• Non-Idle Rich: Mike chose to become a cop despite being born into wealth. This became a Discussed Trope when Marcus mentioned everyone thought Mike was "a rich kid playing cop".
  "You know, man, I'm so sick of this bullshit. What, I'm supposed to apologize for my family leaving me money? All I ever wanted to be was a cop! I go out there and take it to the max everyday! I'm the first guy through the door and I'm always the last one to leave the crime scene! So you know what? Fuck you, and fuck them, and fuck everybody that's got a problem with Mike Lowrey!"
• Not With the Safety On, You Won't: One of Fouchet's henchmen tries to shoot Marcus in the bathroom, but the safety catch is on. Marcus slams him into a urinal.
  Next time, learn to work the safety with your punk-ass.
• Oh, Crap!: Mike, Marcus and Julie when they realise that their getaway vehicle is filled with explosive ether.
  • Max, when fouchet talks about the drugs in front of her, as she correctly realizes she's becoming a dangerous witness.
• Odd Couple: Marcus Burnett with Mike Lowrey.
• Orbital Shot: Used after Mike saves Marcus from being hit by the taxi during Julie's kidnapping.
• Plot-Triggering Death: The murder that Julie witnesses occurs at the start and drives the rest of the plot.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: Said by Marcus before killing a villain by exploding the plane he's on: "You forgot your boarding pass!"
• Rasputinian Death: Fouchet's fat henchman gets shot in the chest by Lowrey with a shotgun, falls backwards into a high voltage transformer which electrocutes him, and the resulting sparks ignite the jet fuel at his feet, setting him on fire.
• Reading Your Rights: Marcus rattles these off during a car chase. The villain, of course, is in the other car.
  Marcus: You have the right to remain silent. Anything you do will be held against you in a court of law.
  Mike: What are you doing?
  Marcus: [determined] Getting it out of the way!
• Running Gag: Julie getting handcuffed, much to her chagrin.
• Ruthless Foreign Gangsters: The very French Fouchet has zero patience for mistakes, and his plan seems to revolve around killing every single person he comes into contact with.
• Sean Connery Is About to Shoot You: The poster has Will Smith pointing a gun toward the viewer.
• Sexless Marriage: Marcus gripes about this at the start of the film. A later scene shows that this is mostly due to lack of opportunity, not trying.
  Marcus: Please man, I'm not getting my sex at home. Don't deny me this [burger].
  Mike: What'chu talking about? You sleep with a beautiful woman every night.
  Marcus: That's what being married means. You sleep together, but you can't get none.
• Soft Water: Julie jumps several stories into a swimming pool to escape several hitmen trying to kill her and survives. It's even lampshaded by one of them.
• Straw Vegetarian: Julie criticizes Marcus for eating baloney, and is picky with shampoo that's animal-tested.
• Stupid Evil: Fouchet is a Trigger-Happy version of this trope, but to provide a specific example: after turning half of Miami into a war zone (in broad daylight) trying to find and/or kill Julie because she's a witness and managing to nab her, he finishes his call threatening to kill Julie if Mike and Marcus interfere with his transaction by saying he is going to kill her anyway once he's done selling the drugs, giving them even less of a reason to stay put.
• Suicide by Cop: Fouchet tries to goad Mike into doing this for him, but he only gets killed after he tries to pull a gun on Marcus.
• Sword over Head: Or rather "handgun to face". Mike gets ready to perform a point-blank Boom, Headshot! on Fouchet at the end of the film, and Fouchet even taunts him to do it. Marcus convinces him to not do it... and then Fouchet pulls a gun. Multiple Gunshot Death ensues.
• Take Five:
  Marcus: Mike. Go downstairs and have a Coke and a smile.
• That Came Out Wrong: Lampshaded in-universe:
  Store Clerk: [pointing a gun at Mike and Marcus] I blow you! And I blow you!
  Marcus: "Blow me?" What the fuck? Naw, naw.
• This Is for Emphasis, Bitch!: Used twicefold when a store clerk mistakes Mike and Marcus for robbers.
  "Hey, freeze, bitch!"
  "You freeze, bitch."
• Those Two Guys: The two Hispanic detectives Sanchez and Ruiz, who exchange some barbs with Mike and Marcus on occasion, and help them during the climactic firefight.
• Titled After the Song: The film is named after the song "Bad Boys" by the reggae group Inner Circle, which is best known as the theme tune to the television series COPS. The characters even sing along to the song at one point.
• Trigger-Happy: Fouchet seems to have only two settings: angry, and murderously angry. And when he's on the latter, he just has to shoot someone, no matter how disproportionate it is. The crime that puts the protagonists on the path to find him is murdering Eddie and the prostitute he was with, for one brick of heroin, then he kills his chemist because they "fucked with his schedule", even if cutting heroine is an incredibly (explosively) delicate business and it's obvious they were rushing things as much as they could, then he shoots the buyer on the spot the moment he sees the cops. He even pulls a gun on Marcus after Mike let him live after the final chase, wasting his Last-Second Chance when Mike notices the glint of his weapon on Marcus' face and kills Fouchet.
• Unresolved Sexual Tension: Discussed in-universe for humor. On Captain Howard and Captain Sinclair having yet another argument:
  Mike: They should just bone and get that shit over with.
• Victoria's Secret Compartment: Julie manages to hide a handcuff key in her bra and uses it to escape during the hangar gunfight. The mook guarding her sees her reach for it but doesn't think to check her.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Mike and Marcus. A lot of their dynamic is the contrast between high strung family man Marcus and smooth ladies' man Mike.
• Vomiting Cop: A discovery of a corpse makes Marcus ill, and he has to leave the scene so that he can blow chunks.
• With Friends Like These...: Mainly in this movie, which begins with the duo bitching at each other. They never really stop.
• You Have Failed Me: Fouchet kills his chemistry team for messing with his schedule.
• Your Mom:
  Marcus: Oh, man, that was cold.
  Detective Sanchez: Yeah, so was your mama's bed.
  • Later:
  Marcus: Where were y'all last night?
  Mike: Yeah, why don't you just tell your cousins to bring the shit back?
  Detective Sanchez: Yeah we tried to, but you know what? We came up with a problem... your mama snorted it up!

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