(10/4/01)

NOTE: The screenplays we review are often in development and may experience many rewrites, some could end up being completely different than what is reviewed here. It is our hope that our reviews generate more interest in the film. Thank you.

I recently said THE LAST CASTLE was one of the most absurd scripts Id ever read. At this time I want to be more declamatory and say that BAD COMPANY (formerly known as BLACK SHEEP) is the most absurd thing Ive ever read -- and that includes scripts, books, plays, the mad ramblings of flea-infected homeless men on the subway.

BAD COMPANY tells the timeless story of a CIA operative who is killed in the line of duty. He was working on something big: he had gained the trust of a Russian arms dealer and would soon have been able to purchase a suitcase-bomb. When the agent, Kevin Pope, gets killed saving his partners life, the CIA is stuck for a way to keep the deal going. Theres one choice. And its a crazy one. Kevin, you see, had an identical twin he never knew existed. Kevin and his brother Jake were separated as children because Jake was almost sure to die due to a congenital asthmatic condition. While Kevin lived the good life with a doctor father, Jake groused his way through fifteen foster homes and ended up in Brooklyn, New York. The CIA goes to New York, tells Jake the score, and enlists him to help them defeat this weapons-selling Russian scoundrel. The partner Kevin died saving, Gaylord Oakes, is the one that will train Jake.

Now let me repeat this: we find here a script about the CIA enlisting the identical twin of an operative to stop a bad guy. Im sorry. Wasnt this a Jean-Claude Van Damme movie? Or maybe it was a PATTY DUKE episode!

Heres the most shocking part of this tripe: One of our greatest actors will star: Sir Anthony Hopkins. His co-star? Chris Rock. Their producer? Jerry "Whiz-Bang" Bruckheimer.

Its understandable why Chris would take on a role opposite an Oscar winner. As for Hopkins, as much as I hate to say it, he can only be doing this for the money. And as much as people bash Bruckheimer movies, the man knows what hes doing and his movies are almost always entertaining. He has his formula down to a science (even if it normally takes ten writers to achieve it). This is a bizarre, stunning misstep.

Im sure you realize where this script goes. Jake must train to be an agent and hes put through rigorous, double-time training. How to shoot a gun, evasive driving, self-protection, etc. Jake, of course, cant do a thing and Oakes slowly steams till he wants to take Jake apart inch by inch. Oakes is expediently guilty and blames himself for Kevins death. He takes this anger out on Jake and never for a second lets him forget that his brother was a better man than him. Soon enough Jake, who was a baseball card salesman, is with-it enough to do the job. Action ensues as another group wants the bomb Jake is buying and tries to kill him. When the deal actually does go down double-dealing spoils everything and the bad guys get away with the nuke. Do you think Oakes, with a new respect for Jake (his new partner), will get the nuke back, take it somewhere, and have to disarm it? Do you think Jakes sloppily set up ability with remembering baseball stats comes in handy? Will Oakes and Jake leave this near-death experience good buddies? Take a guess, my friends.

This plot doesnt deserve the word "ridiculous." Its beyond that. Youd have to create a new language to properly represent how asinine it is.

First you have the howler of a premise. Twins separated at birth. One becomes a CIA man; the other, a baseball card salesman. When one dies the other must take his place in a high-stakes deal which could be disastrous for his country! Dramatic sting! The reason Jake goes along with this insanity is even more dimwitted: the store he works for is in the hole fifty large to a local mobster. Once Oakes promises Jake the money he goes along with the job. Why didnt they just make it that the family farm was going to be bought by the local millionaire to build a minimall? (We are also witness to an incongruous scene where Jake loses his precious Mickey Mantle rookie card. The scene is set up like something out of a kids movie: a bike messenger bumps Jake, the card skids into the street, a car runs over it, and then a bus sucks it up and it disappears.)

Heres the other problem: Oakes and Jake are buying this nuke. So why dont they just take it and leave and then bust the people who sold it to them? Whats all this business about disarming it right then and there where the deal is being set? And once they have the bad guys and the bomb in the same room why cant they just bust in and take them down?

This is if youre not even thinking about the fact that you wouldnt need Kevin to buy the bomb. Since when do illegal arms dealers care who they sell to? You have to cultivate a six-month relationship with someone -- even when youre paying nineteen million dollars?

And what about this other gang trying to kill Jake? The Russians know about it. "They have the money," a Russian says to them, "either you pay us more or take out the competition." So these Russians want to deal with guys who, not willing to spend more money, solve their problems with guns? Great idea.

The proof of whats wrong here might be right on the title page. It says this is BAD COMPANYs fifteenth revision. And thats not including how many drafts it took to get to this one. And what went into the script when Rock and Hopkins came on.

Money could have been the only motivation for everyone involved. Because BAD COMPANY is plainly awful. If it didnt take itself so seriously this would have made a great comedy.

Writer Jason Richman peppers the story with generic chase scenes, but their transparent purpose of being to fill time is so obvious theyre hard to read. Thinking of Hopkins, such an intelligent man, and Rock, such a funny man, voicing Richmans terrible dialogue is like the image of the Sistine Chapel desecrated with glow-in-the-dark, Day-Glo graffiti.

I recently read and reviewed a script by the name of SPY GAME. Both SPY GAME and BAD COMPANY travel along the same roads. Especially in the inner workings of the CIA and "spy school." For all of SPY GAMEs flaws, it had an intelligence and knowledge that made its cogs and wheels turn sleekly. BAD COMPANY, which is so dismal and godawful and fatuous, makes SPY GAME and THE LAST CASTLE look like examples of excellence.

BAD COMPANY is sort of like a freakish three-headed cow. Its plot is laughably witless enough to be a comedy, but it has no humor. It has enough action scenes to suggest its a Jerry Bruckheimer project, but the scenes are so boring and moldy they cant live up to movies Jerry produced twenty years ago. It has brought together enough star power to hint at an actors showcase, but it doesnt give them anything interesting to say or do.

BAD COMPANY isnt one of those movies, like TRADING PLACES or BACK TO THE FUTURE, that, once you get over their dumb openings, it wins you over. BAD COMPANY starts out brainless, and it stays that way till its end.

(Final note: this film changed its original name, BLACK SHEEP, to avoid confusion with the Chris Farley-David Spade comedy. How do they accomplish this? They retitle it with a name thats been used four times previously. Including as recently as a few years ago. Isnt this a punctilious example of everything that is wrong with this project?)

-- Darwin Mayflower.