Product Description

Academy Award(R)-winner Anthony Hopkins (Best Actor, 1991, THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS) and the irrepressible Chris Rock star in this spy action thriller that will have you on the edge of your seat! Veteran CIA agent Gaylord Oakes (Hopkins) must recruit streetwise punk Jake Hayes (Rock) when Jake's identical twin brother is killed in the line of duty. With only nine days to complete a nuclear weapons negotiation, Jake has to go from smart talking to smooth operating and convince all parties he is the sophisticated brother he never knew. From Prague to New York the chase is on and the clock is ticking when more than a preemptive arms deal goes "bad."

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #41475 in DVD
• Released on: 2002-11-12
• Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, French
• Subtitled in: Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 116 minutes

Amazon.com
Bad Company boasts all the gloss one expects from A-list Hollywood talent, but you get a lot of chaff with the wheat. Pay attention to Anthony Hopkins as a weary CIA veteran, and you'll see the reliable work of an old pro giving his best in the absence of challenge. That sums up this movie, however: Hopkins and costar Chris Rock are already fighting clichés when Rock is recruited into the CIA after his identical twin brother (they'd been separated at birth) is killed in the line of duty. Rock and Hopkins must carry out a sting against nuclear terrorists, but apart from this coincidental similarity to The Sum of All Fears, director Joel Schumacher seems asleep at the wheel, rotely crafting a thriller without thrills for Pearl Harbor producer Jerry Bruckheimer. Those expecting comedy from Rock will be disappointed; Bad Company reins him in, and that restraint affects the rest of the movie. --Jeff Shannon

From The New Yorker
The plot is about suitcase nukes, so the movie has been sitting on the shelf for a while. It's also a Jerry Bruckheimer production, so forget about subtlety. But Chris Rock and Anthony Hopkins make for a pretty good odd couple, and the director Joel Schumacher shoots some glossy and effective showdowns. So far so good, that is, until the final set piece in Grand Central Station, a doomsday scenario that gives this popcorn flick a nightmare afterglow. -Michael Agger
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

waste of time, film and money (spoilers)
Because he gets to play the part of identical twins, Chris Rock is given the opportunity - rare for a lead player - of having his character die in the opening scene. Considering the quality of the film as a whole, he might well regret that BOTH characters don't get to bite the dust early on.

But stuck in the film he is - and he, co-star Anthony Hopkins, producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Joel Schumacher are going to have to live with the stain of this embarrassment on their records for a very long time to come (hence, the appropriately named "Bad Company"). The screenplay by James Richman and Michael Browning tells the tedious tale of one Jack Hayes, a ne'er-do-well New York City shyster, who is employed by the CIA to impersonate the twin brother he never knew he had, a brother who was recently killed in action trying to retrieve a portable nuclear bomb from some Middle Eastern terrorists. Anthony Hopkins plays Gaylord Oakes, a seasoned CIA operative whose job it is to "groom" Hayes for the mission.

It would be hard to overestimate just how mediocre this production really is. The storyline is flat and unimaginative, the villains bland and colorless, the humor weak and poorly executed, the action scenes routine and strangely truncated. The "grooming" sequences are particularly unimpressive, since Hayes seems like essentially the same person after the lessons as he was before them (think of it as James Bond meets "My Fair Lady"). About the only news here is that Schumacher seems, for the most part, to have abandoned his Cuisinart-style approach to directing and editing, choosing instead to shoot and splice the film in a basically humdrum, static way. The result is a talky film in which no one says anything that is of even the slightest interest either to each other or to the audience stuck watching the spectacle.

Apparently, the action film genre has become so depleted of ideas that the best filmmakers can do at this point is to concoct a fantasy scenario in which a wisecracking Average Joe gets to save the world from total nuclear destruction in time to say "I do" to that longsuffering girl waiting patiently back home. This sort of preposterous premise may work well in "Austin Powers"-like parodies, but it hardly merits serious attention in a straight action-adventure tale such as this one. And frankly, I am beginning to question the appropriateness of using the threat of nuclear annihilation by terrorists as a source for mindless mass audience entertainment. When will some gifted filmmaker finally come along to address this issue with the kind of seriousness and gravity that it so obviously deserves?

Neither Hopkins nor Rock can be faulted for their performances. They do the best they can with the material they've been handed. Hopkins, in particular though, needs to start signing on to more challenging assignments before the lease runs out on his reputation as one of the world's premier actors.

About the best that can be said for "Bad Company" is that it affords us an opportunity to armchair travel to photogenic Prague (remember "Slaughterhouse-Five"). That exquisite locale at least gives us something to look at for the two hours we're stranded in the theatre.

Bad Company - Very good escapist movie - worth seeing
I went to see this movie on June 3rd at a preview screening...The theater was full, and judging by the reaction of the rest of the audience as the movie progressed, I would have to say that most other viewers agreed with me and enjoyed the movie as well.
Chris Rock plays a dual role as a CIA agent and his twin brother (separated by adoption as infants) who didn't know of each other's existence. When the agent is killed in the middle of a deal, the CIA pays a visit to his brother, a small-time bookie with a good heart and an aversion to 'suits'. He is talked into playing the role of his brother in order to complete the deal that was in progress.
Anthony Hopkins' talent makes the best of the rather mediocre script given to his character, and his character becomes a character you sympathize with and root for.
There are many laughable moments in this movie, and it moves along at a very good pace ... there are some predictable turns but enough unpredictability to keep you guessing.
I left the movie with the thought "I'm glad I went; it was well worth seeing".
Oscar-caliber? No. Good entertainment? Yes; definitely. Put this on your summer movie list; you won't be sorry you did.

Bad Company Is GOOD!
This is the best movie I have seen in a long time. I am a fan of both Chris Rock and Anthony Hopkins but I never thought they would be in a movie together. It just works. The movie has a great balance of action AND comedy and the two stars seem to have good chemistry. Props also to the director Joel Schumacher for pulling it all together. Go see it, you won't be disappionted!!