As historic prophecy foretold, the “Quick & Livid”-ification of the “Dangerous Boys” franchise is made full with its fourth installment, which builds on the sordid plot twists of 2020’s “Dangerous Boys for Life”: an undercover affair! A secret cartel love baby who murders Joe Pantoliano! DJ Khaled! This trigger-happy cleaning soap opera spins a breakneck and broadly entertaining summer season blockbuster in regards to the holy trinity of American traditions: household, corruption, and taking pictures individuals. This one even ends with a barbecue.
Vin Diesel’s Wagnerian automotive saga ran out of gasoline a very long time in the past, however the story engine that powered it from the streets to the stratosphere has confirmed a stable match for this sunbaked nostalgia act, a ’90s-era property straining to remain related in a sick, unhappy world the place Deadpool is a much bigger draw than Michael Bay, and Will Smith is much less well-known for his hits than his slaps. It was once that an iconic reggae music and two bonafide film stars had been sufficient to carry a franchise collectively — now you want a mythology. It was once that spectacle was sufficient to drive crowds to the multiplex — now you want the sunken-cost fallacy. Folks need to really feel obligated to purchase a ticket on opening weekend.
So right here we go once more, with Detective Lieutenants Mike Lowrey (Smith) and Marcus Burnett (Martin Lawrence) returning for a sequel that doubles down on the earlier film’s efforts to spin a easy cops-and-robbers sequence into one thing larger. One thing that protects itself in opposition to the long run whereas concurrently consecrating its personal previous. Bear in mind the humorous scene in “Dangerous Boys II” when a pleasant child named Reggie confirmed as much as take Marcus’ daughter on a date, just for our cop heroes to wave a gun in his face? If “Dangerous Boys for Life” turned that bit right into a operating gag, “Dangerous Boys: Experience or Die” bends over backward to codify it as a chunk of cultural historical past.
And you realize what? It principally works. It really works as a result of Reggie actor Dennis Greene, who to at the present time has by no means acted in something exterior of the “Dangerous Boys” franchise, is a comic book savant whose slab-faced deadpan makes him the right foil for Smith and Lawrence’s shouty banter. It really works as a result of the film round these actors strikes the proper stability between silliness and sincerity, even when solely by advantage of being sillier and extra honest than any of the earlier installments. And it really works as a result of administrators Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah (billed as Adil & Bilall) proceed to honor the sequence’ roots — planted by returning superproducer Jerry Bruckheimer — even because the script threatens to drag additional away from them.
In fact, some issues by no means change. Marcus might have spent the final film threatening to retire, however “Experience or Die” naturally begins with the Dangerous Boys doing what they do greatest: violating each conceivable Miami visitors legislation with full impunity, as if “Grand Theft Auto” had been a coaching simulation as a substitute of an anarchic fantasy. They’re late for Mike’s marriage ceremony, the place the lifelong fuckboy — chastened by the still-recent discovery that he’s the daddy and sole residing relative of a cartel murderer named Armando (Jacob Scipio) — is scheduled to tie the knot with a bodily coach he met between films. Her title is Christine; she’s performed by the great “Alan Wake II” actress Melanie Liburd, and her character right here is so transparently a human prop that she’s half-obscured on the altar by a large portrait of Mike’s slain ex-boss, Captain Conrad Howard. (In equity, who amongst us doesn’t want they obtained married subsequent to a framed {photograph} of character actor Joe Pantoliano?)
Bizarre or not, the marriage is an ideal venue to assemble just about all of the characters who will matter to this story. Characters like Mike’s boss and ex-girlfriend Rita Secada (Paola Núñez), who killed his child mama on the finish of the final film and is now courting high-powered mayoral candidate Lockwood (Horatio Hornblower himself, Ioan Gruffudd), a crusty go well with of a politician who couldn’t scream “potential unhealthy man!” any louder if he delivered each line of dialogue instantly into Immortan Joe’s loudspeaker system. There’s additionally Captain Howard’s embittered daughter (a wasted Rhea Seehorn), a U.S. Marshall so livid about her father’s homicide that she’s liable to make wildly illogical assumptions about who was behind it, even when these assumptions make Mike and Miles into needed fugitives. The identical Mike who beloved her dad a lot that his marriage ceremony ceremony occurred at an altar to him! We additionally meet her daughter Callie (Quinn Hemphill) as a result of a “Dangerous Boys” film can by no means have sufficient feminine characters to be taken hostage within the third act.
And but, for the entire new and acquainted faces at Mike’s marriage ceremony, it’s his previous buddy Marcus who finally ends up stealing the highlight, as he suffers a large — however comically clever — coronary heart assault in the midst of the dance flooring. It’s not all unhealthy information: The potential widowmaker permits Mike’s soul to go to the seaside from “Contact” and meet up with Pantoliano’s Power ghost earlier than he jolts again to life just a few days later, satisfied that the universe received’t let him die till it’s “his time.” (Pantoliano additionally seems in a sequence of video diaries the Captain recorded earlier than his dying, together with the lovely one during which he refers to Mike and Marcus as “my unhealthy boys” in the identical tone Bob Odenkirk as soon as referred to the March sisters as his little ladies.) Lawrence even has his personal little “Fearless” second as he walks alongside the sting of the hospital roof together with his ass hanging out, which is par for the course in a film that nods again to the ’90s at any time when it may possibly.
Evidently, that feeling of invincibility is a harmful factor for a cop to have when he’s chasing after closely armed criminals. And it’ll pave the way in which for Marcus to stand up to all kinds of frantic shenanigans — and 1,000 completely different jokes about how Mike was his pet donkey in a previous life — as he and Mike attempt to seek out the sociopathic ex-Military Ranger (Eric Dane) who’s framed their late Captain as a double agent for the cartels. It’s a hunt that can drive the Boys to spring Mike’s estranged son from the maximum-security jail he’s nonetheless in for the Captain’s homicide.
It could be an understatement to say that Will Beal and Chris Bremner’s script requires a sure suspension of disbelief, however Adil & Bilall are satisfied they will maintain a certain quantity of nonsense with centrifugal drive alone if they simply maintain the plot’s wheels spinning quick sufficient, and so they’re not improper about that. At 115 minutes (with credit), “Experience or Die” is just a hair shorter than the next-leanest movie in its franchise, however it strikes at a velocity these characters have by no means seen earlier than, the motion screeching from one setpiece to a different as if edited to match the way in which that Mike drives.
Inspired by the simple, timeless, and still-enjoyable rapport between Smith and Lawrence, that manic pacing is the very best clarification this film provides for Mike’s frequent panic assaults. It’s an affordable method of indicating a brand new degree of concern for the individuals in his life, and an excellent cheaper setup for the closest factor “Experience or Die” provides to a meta-joke about Smith’s notorious night time on the Oscars. It’s additionally the one excuse this film must race by means of Tiffany Haddish’s cameo as a stripper with a whole arsenal in her g-string, reintroduce DJ Khaled because the face of the franchise’s felony underworld, and utterly ignore the truth that Charles Melton’s “Rafe” is MIA (his AMMO comrades Vanessa Hudgens and Alexander Ludwig abruptly materialize within the film’s second hour as in the event that they’ve been there all alongside, although it’s good to have them again). At one level, the script gestures towards making a direct reference to “Dangerous Boys II,” however even that falls by the wayside as Mike and Marcus discover themselves on the run.
The movie’s relentless pacing is probably greatest exemplified by its frenetic motion sequences, every shot like the ultimate match from “Challengers.” Adil & Bilall transfer the digital camera a lot that they make Michael Bay really feel like a panorama painter by comparability, bouncing across the actors like a computer-guided tennis ball within the hopes that it would save them from the trouble of staging first rate battle choreography. Missing Bay’s singular reward for symphonic ultra-violence (and the price range he requires to stage it), the administrators go for a equally graphic — however much more cartoonish — method that cheats towards online game aesthetics at any time when attainable. It’s telling that the simplest show of fight is the one which Mike and Marcus watch from a third-person POV by means of residence safety screens, and that the climactic firefight totally adopts the look of a first-person shooter at any time when it’s determined for a unique solution to present our bodies getting crammed with bullets.
And but, not one of the film’s try-hard appeals to trendy audiences are sufficient to divorce “Experience or Die” from the unique spirit of its franchise, and from the glory days of late twentieth century blockbusters that it nonetheless represents to a point. From a Lorne Balfe rating that overtly quotes Hans Zimmer’s theme from “The Rock” to a high-flying hijack sequence that drifts off the reminiscence of “Con Air” to the random cutaway pictures of characters holding one another amid a burnt orange sundown as orchestral music keens over the soundtrack, “Experience or Die” is ineffably anchored to the age when Jerry Bruckheimer was king.
Some issues have modified for the higher (the homosexual panic that gripped “Dangerous Boys II” has softened right into a extra Twenty first-century tackle masculinity that by no means will get extra aggressive than Smith angrily insisting his soul has a dick). However for all of the sequence’ efforts to encompass Mike and Marcus with a lore that may stay on with out them, “Dangerous Boys” continues to be a star-driven franchise at a time when valuable few of them are left. “Experience or Die” is aware of how these films used to work, and it doesn’t neglect, even because it resigns itself to the way in which films work now. Regardless of the whole lot that’s crammed into this one, it’s nonetheless nothing with out Mike and Marcus. And regardless of the whole lot that Smith has been by means of for the reason that earlier installment, he and Lawrence will all the time be — as a sure police captain would possibly so preciously select to place it — our unhealthy boys.
Grade: B-
Sony Photos will launch “Dangerous Boys: Experience or Die” in theaters on Thursday, June 6.