Bad Boys 2

There's an argument to be made that Michael Bay's Bad Boys 2 is the purest attempt by Hollywood to recreate a Hong Kong style action film. Bay's film doesn't try to replicate the platonic ideal of John Woo's The Killer though, instead it's closer to something people in Hong Kong might've actually wanted to see, a film like Sammo Hung's dayglo matinee My Lucky Stars. Like Hung's film Bad Boys 2 has wild mood shifts and a dramatic premise completely subservient to seeing our favourite film stars yukking it up. Terrifying action choreography is bracketed by scenes of Will Smith and Martin Lawrence bickering about upholstery; Michael Bay cross-pollinates Golden Harvest star vehicles with rap album skits and gun porn.

In Bad Boys 2 countries are invaded to right familial transgressions. Comedy routines about buck-toothed Klansmen track into gooey head shots and two entirely separate sequences objectify cadavers. A significant chunk of the middle section is given over to the two leads posing as pest exterminators in an effort to infiltrate the bad guy's mansion. There's no attempt to build any real tension - we don't feel like either of their lives are in danger. Instead it's an opportunity to push a camera in extremely close to Martin Lawrence's awed, sweaty face as he watches two rats copulate missionary. Basically, Bad Boys 2 lives to entertain you. It doesn't know what you want, so it tries to give you everything. Here are some apocalyptic car crashes. Maybe you didn't like that so here's Smith and Lawrence talking about anal sex. If that didn't do it for you, how about a shoot-out in which the camera moves in and around the combatants like a snake?

Bad Boys 2 even has the good grace to roll with an adult certificate - this isn't bad taste cinema as smuggled Summer product, it's brazen. Invective and exit wounds. Intended to be seen by its most enthusiastic audience on home video. Bad Boys 2 doesn't pretend to be a tight narrative experience, it takes the bare model of a cops and robbers movie and embellishes, hurling money and ego and reality TV musical punctuation at you. Action cinema as a hyper-caffeinated variety act whose sole aim is to make you feel like you got your money's worth. Bad Boys 2 wants you to feel like your price of admission was nothing compared to how many fresh-off-the-assembly-line cars got rolled then gutted.

"Shit just got REAL."

Tucked in for the night, I decided to flick around the fraction of channels available to me for something to watch. The less thinking, the better. Through happy coincidence I happened across that perennial of anti-thought: a Michael Bay film. Not just any Michael Bay film either. I'd discovered me some Bad Boys 2. Jackpot!

Bad Boys 2 is a quite astonishing film, not because of any merit usually associated with even the most generous person's idea of quality; instead this Will Smither sequel is an exemplary piece of cinema for simply being so unrelentingly grotty. Miranda is flouted, countries are invaded, shanty towns flattened by 4X4s, and a lead character cuddles up to a rotting cadaver with frankly massive bosoms. If someone European had directed Bad Boys 2, it would be hailed as a masterpiece of the tasteless. Unfortunately, Michael Bay directed it, so everyone who isn't a retarded fifteen year old boy hates it (I am of course a retarded fifteen year old boy AT HEART).

This being Sunday night TV, surely all that shameful yuck was edited out? Even a station as hip to pornography as Channel 5 would baulk at screening such screaming, bed-wetting filth on God's day? Think of the children! Who cares if it's nearly midnight! But no! All the pant itching necrophilia was present and correct. Bodies where still exploding into lumpy meat! Dead breasts still jiggled! It was harrowing. Bay's 2003 love letter to poking dog-pooh did not make it onto our screens completely intact though, senseless violence aside, someone at 5 took issue with the language content of the film. Who can blame them? A typical conversation in Bad Boys 2 runs thus:

Will Smith: "Fuck!"
Martin Lawrence: "What the mother fuck?"
Will Smith: "Mother fucker, am I really seeing this shit?"
Martin Lawrence: "That mother fucker just shoot at us?"
Will Smith: "Mother fucking right he did. Mother fucker!"
Martin Lawrence: "That mother fucker!"

I'm paraphrasing, but you get the gist. That's the unedited uncut Superbit DVD version (which I own). By way of comparison, here's the sickening example of Nanny State censorship I was subjected to last night:

Will Smith: "Fuck!"
Martin Lawrence: "What the fuck?"
Will Smith: "Fucker, am I really seeing this shit?"
Martin Lawrence: "That fucker just shoot at us?"
Will Smith: "Fucking right he did. Fucker!"
Martin Lawrence: "That fucker!"

Those 'saints' at Channel 5 saw fit to delete that most disgusting of words: Mother. Horrifying! Just typing it makes me right cunting sick. Minges me right off. Ugh. I feel dirty. I shall have to have a wash. With bleach.

Mock outrage and 'hilarity' aside, isn't that an interesting choice? Take a look at this swear chart, reprinted on the Guardian website:



The above chart forms a crucial part of a poll used in the media as an ongoing reference point for likely nationwide frothing should any of these dreadful words actually be heard. As you can see, out of 100 people polled 71 found the word fuck very severe indeed, whereas motherfucker inched that outrage further north up to the dizzy heights of 79. Cunt still rules the roost with 83% disgust.

There you have it: fuck is 8% less offensive than motherfucker. That's maths and charts that is. Can't argue with that. Channel 5's decision is one of severity. Rather than delete the cuss couplet outright, and perhaps spoil the mood of excess, 5 instead elected to dip the sound on the qualifying part of the swear, thus making it a fraction less offensive. Hats off to them. A much more mature practice than poorly dubbing the phrase with some mid 90s ITV standby like: 'muddy thumper' or 'metal frumper', I'm sure you'll agree. Still, you know, it was nearly midnight.