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Bad Company

2002, Movie, PG-13, 117 mins

Bad Company: Review

BAD COMPANY
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Surprisingly somber for a film starring Chris Rock and surprisingly frivolous for one about terrorists trying to detonate a nuclear bomb in midtown Manhattan. CIA operative Kevin Pope (Rock) has spent years cultivating the persona of sophisticated, Prague-based antiques dealer Michael Tucker, who's into some very shady business on the side. Having carefully developed connections in the international arms black market, Kevin/Tucker is about to close a deal to buy a nuclear bomb in a suitcase, with his partner, veteran CIA agent Oakes (Anthony Hopkins), playing the money man. But something goes wrong and Kevin is mortally wounded. Since his volatile contact, Adrik Vas (Peter Stormare), trusts only Kevin, it looks as though the operation is dead. Unless, of course, the CIA can make something of its ace in the hole, Kevin's twin brother Jake (Rock again). The infants were separated at birth and raised worlds apart, Kevin swaddled in wealth and privilege and Jake in a series of impoverished foster homes. Can Oakes and his team train Jake to impersonate Kevin well enough to seal the deal and keep the bomb off the open market? Jake agrees to the charade, figuring the money will allow him to marry his girlfriend, Julie (Kerry Washington); he has no idea how high the stakes are because CIA bigwigs warn Oakes not to say. And so the makeover begins: the comic pratfalls of transforming brash hustler Jake into a smooth operator in a mere nine days is leant urgency by the fact that terrorists are hell-bent on getting their hands on the portable thermonuclear device before "Michael Tucker" returns to close his deal. You can see where all the parts of this sleek thriller come from: 48 HRS.-inspired pairing of grizzled Nick Nolte and cocky young motor mouth Eddie Murphy (it's hard to remember now what a fresh combination that was in 1982); Mark Twain's The Prince and the Pauper; Mission: Impossible's globetrotting spy games — the wonder is how smoothly all the pieces fit together. Hopkins and Rock are a surprisingly good mix; Hopkins actually underplays his role as a company man with a barely acknowledged conscience, while Rock's manic impulses aren't allowed to run riot. Made before the terrorist destruction of the World Trade Center towers and pushed back some ten months from its original fall 2001 release date, the film's timing gives unintended weight to its casually cynical take on the availability of weapons of mass destruction and international anti-American sentiment. leave a comment --Maitland McDonagh
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