Bad Boys (1995 Film) - Reception

Reception

The film was commercially successful, grossing $141,407,024 worldwide — $65,807,024 in North America and $75,600,000 in other territories. However, critical reception was generally mixed. Film review aggregating website Rotten Tomatoes reported that 43% of 41 sampled critics gave the film positive reviews and that it got a rating average of 4.9 out of 10. Most of the criticisms focused on the fact that despite the production of the film and the ability of the stars, the script did not diverge from the generic plot of a cop-buddy genre film, instead opting for repeated use of formulaic scenes.

Roger Ebert in his video review of the film on At the Movies noted that despite the highly energetic approach of the two lead actors and the visual style of the film, their acting talents were mostly "new wine in old bottles". He illustrated that many of the elements featured in the film including both the plot and characters had been recycled from other films, particularly those from the Lethal Weapon and Beverly Hills Cop series -- recurrent stock-characters, police detective clichés and over-long action scenes. In describing the archetypal cop-buddy genre action scene adhered to by the film, Ebert noted "Whenever a movie like this starts to drag, there's always one infallible solution; have a car-chase and then blow something up real good."

Gene Siskel in his appraisal of the film said that he had lost interest in the film after its introduction due to the very formulaic approach, and repeated Roger Ebert's criticism that the talents of the lead actors were wasted; suggesting that the production company did not spend significant time producing a script which would be suitable for their talents.