‘Bad Company’ is aptly titled

Hollywood must stop putting words of negative quality in its movie titles. Because “Bad Company” is indeed very bad, to make jokes based on its title would seem redundant. Seeing as though the title makes little sense in accordance to the plot, my only explanation is that calling the film “Bad” was an acknowledgement from the filmmakers.

CIA Agent Oakes (Anthony Hopkins) has a problem: he needs to recover a nuclear (“nucular”) device from a Russian arms dealer before other interested buyers get their hands on it. Unfortunately, his contact to the dealer, Kevin Pope (Chris Rock) has been assassinated by those rivals. In 10 days, Pope must meet with the dealer again to attain the device. The CIA, in a desperate move, contacts his identical twin brother, Jake Hayes (Rock), a street-smart ticket scalper, and offers big bucks to take Kevin’s identity and recover the bomb. Jake agrees to help, but he’s got a long way to go before he can pass as Kevin. Can he pull it off? Probably not.

“Bad Company” is so filled with plot holes, clichés and poor logic that it’s hard to tell if the film is mind-numbingly stupid or talking down to the audience. Here are my favorite examples of improbable occurrences:

(1) Jake runs into his twin brother’s girlfriend, a correspondent for CNN. He is explicitly told not to screw anything up, so their plot is not revealed. She is so attractive that Jake calls his own girlfriend in New Jersey to affirm his love for her. Predictably, Jake screws up and the CNN girlfriend finds out the dupe. She storms off, never to be seen again. What is her purpose in the film? To progress the plot, of course: the villains trace Jake’s call so they can kidnap his real girlfriend, which is lucky for the movie, because she only exists to be kidnapped.

(2) The bad guy, named Baz, gives Jake a cell phone, telling him that he will always call Jake on this phone when he has new information. Whenever the phone rings, Jake answers it, says, “Hello,” then says, “It’s Baz,” as if everyone expected someone else to call instead.

(3) In a wild car chase, Oakes fires his pistol at the baddies constantly until it clicks three times. However, he doesn’t say “Damn!” until he checks the chamber, which is indeed empty. Tell me, why else would the pistol click when you pulled the trigger?

Beyond the terrible script, everyone (even Hopkins) acts as if they were half-asleep, or uncaring. The action is extremely tiresome and overdone. But to dwell on the film is a waste of time. Make all the puns you want about the title, but it all boils down to one thing: just don’t see “Bad Company.”