[trackercowe]

Smith and Lawrence killed many more innocents in the movie than the "villains" did. They were truly the villains of that movie.

Ebert's review sums it up quite nicely. http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/bad-boys-ii-2003

There is an ugly scene in "Bad Boys II" that I want to tell you about. A cop played by Martin Lawrence is alarmed that his 15-year-old daughter is going out on her first date. We see the girl, pretty and hopeful in her new dress, being fussed over by her mother. The doorbell rings, and Lawrence opens it to confront her date, a nervous 15-year-old boy, tall and thin, neatly dressed.

Marcus and his partner (Will Smith) intimidate the boy without mercy. He is threatened with the unspeakable if he lays a hand on the girl. They demand to know if he is a virgin. They slap him with the N-word. At one point a gun is pulled on him. "Ever had sex with a man?" Smith asks. Then with a leer: "Want to?" The boy is terrified.

The needless cruelty of this scene took me out of the movie and into the minds of its makers. What were they thinking? Have they so lost touch with human nature that they think audiences will like this scene? Do they think it's funny? Did the actors voice any objections? It's the job of the producer to keep a film on track; did Jerry Bruckheimer notice anything distasteful? Or is it possible that everyone connected with the film has become so desensitized by the relentless cynical aggression of movies like this that the scene passed without comment? "Bad Boys II" is a bloated, unpleasant assembly-line extrusion in which there are a lot of chases and a lot of killings and explosions.

What happens next is kind of sickening. The Hummer speeds down a hillside entirely covered by the tarpaper shanties of poor people. Walls and roofs, doors and windows, dogs and chickens, corrugated iron and curtains, all fly into the air as the Hummer cuts a swath through this settlement. And I'm thinking, people live there. There's a quick mention that drug production takes place on the hillside, but still: Dozens of poor shantytown dwellers must have been killed, not that the movie notices.

There was once a time when a hero would sacrifice his own life rather than injure innocent bystanders. No longer. The heroes of "Bad Boys II" are egotistical monsters, concerned only with their power, their one-liners, their weapons, their cars, their desires. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that characters who wipe out a village can also make cruel jokes at the expense of a kid on his first date. Everybody involved in this project needs to do some community service.