Bad Boys 4 includes a cathartic scene that I think is about Will Smith’s Oscar controversy, and it’s so raw I’m surprised they included it

I never would have thought that when I left Michael Bay’s Bad Boys in 1995, that we I always talk about the franchise almost 30 years later… or that the discussion would encompass so many fascinating and human subjects. What started as a typical buddy cop movie has grown with the characters and actors, and now touches on larger philosophical topics like family, retirement, parenting, inheritance, and more. I finally caught up with Bilal and Adil Bad Boys: Ride or Die after seeing how well it did at the box office. What I didn’t expect to see, however, was a vulnerable and raw scene that seemed – in my interpretation – to be addressed to Will Smith’s controversial slap at the Oscars, and the feelings he had to struggle with afterwards.

We all know that Will Smith slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars after the comedian mocked Jada Pinkett Smith from the stage. The incident is not addressed directly in Bad Boys: Ride or Diebut there is a facet of the new story that I think is intended to deal with the slap and its emotional repercussions.

Stop reading now if you don’t want to know any spoilers about the current hit, Bad Boys: Ride or Die.

(Image credit: Sony)

Throughout the fourth Bad Boys film, Mike Lowrey, overconfident, finds himself the victim of panic attacks. Like many people suddenly faced with anxiety, Mike denies it and pretends it doesn’t happen. But in the middle of various fights, Mike freezes.

It turns out that Mike is going after his captain (Joe Pantoliano) getting murdered in the previous film, Bad boys for life. It doesn’t help that Captain Howard’s daughter, Judy (Rhea Seehorn), blames Mike’s son, Armando (Jacob Scipio), for the assassination. Yes, this series has become a soap opera with guns, but I still commend it for tackling emotional topics that men face as they age.

As for The Slap, it came to mind during the third act shootout. Mike freezes again, just when his longtime role model, Marcus Burnett, needs him most. This time, Mike sees his former captain in a vision. And Pantoliano basically tells Will Smith, “Everything’s fine. It’s not your fault.”

Mike (and also Smith) is forgiven. We tell him it’s OK to move on. But it’s what happens next that got me thinking about Smith’s unfortunate public outburst. In order to snap him out of his trance, Marcus slaps Mike and tells him – I’m paraphrasing here – “Stop that shit. You have to move on. Just because you said something back doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. The dialogue is layered, as it takes place in the middle of a firefight, so you know the lines were intentionally included. And it’s not that Marcus slaps Mike when he tells him that. It’s the fact that Marcus slaps Mike a second time. And then a third.

That’s when I realized, “Oh, this is Will Smith’s penance.” » Mike is told that something he thinks he did wrong is not his fault. Something many movie characters face. But it was the three slaps, delivered by Martin Lawrence as he told Will Smith “you’re not a bad person”, that made me realize the star was trying to come to terms with what he had done. And trying to move past the guilt he probably felt.

And this in the middle of a $100 million sequel.

When Bilal and Adil took over the Bad Boys franchise from original director Michael Bay, they injected more character development along the Bay-hem. We still have explosions and car chases. But the third and fourth Bad Boys the films show our heroes confronting their mortality, the growing needs of their families, and their enduring love for each other. As Marcus claims to Mike in Bad Boys: Ride or Die, these men are kindred spirits. They are bad boys for life.

The new Bad Boys breathed life into the box office and somehow showed that audiences were ready to accept Will Smith as a movie star once again. Has anyone else seen this scene in Bad Boys: Ride or Die and see it as a therapeutic liberation, the act of a celebrity hoping to forgive himself for a bad deed? That’s how I read it, and I was shocked – but happy – to see it in the film.