Bad
Company, directed by Joel Schumacher, is the third
recent film, after The Peacekeeper (1997) and
this year's The Sum of All Fears,
to feature a nuclear suitcase bomb of Russian origin on the
loose. One day Jake Hayes (played by squeaky-voiced Chris
Rock) is captured in Jersey City by CIA operatives led by
Gaylord Oakes (played by Anthony Hopkins), who asks him to
impersonate his twin brother (also played by Chris Rock),
a CIA agent who died while trying to purchase the bomb so
that Serbian terrorists would not obtain the weapon to unleash
a nuclear catastrophe in the United States. (Later a Serb
explains that the bomb is in retaliation for Washington's
arrogant disregard for the poor of the world.) Jake is unaware
that he had a twin brother; after birth, his foster mother
was responsible for his upbringing. Nevertheless, he agrees
to participate in the plan to obtain the bomb after Oakes
promises him a substantial sum of money, though later, when
his girlfriend Julie (played by Kerry Washington) is kidnapped,
he professes more altruism about the assignment. With much
of the film footage in lovely Prague, Bad Company
has a lot of chase scenes, double-crosses, a hostage taking,
and a happy ending. Despite playing the fool as usual and
lambasting white guys who treat him as such, Chris Rock's
Jake finally saves the day because, as a consummate chessplayer,
he can recall all the numbers input into the bomb's computer
to disable the detonation. In the final scene of the film,
presumably tacked on after 9/11, Jake plays homage to all
the CIA agents who have lost their lives in the service of
their country over the years, though earlier in the film he
had tonguelashed the CIA for incompetence. MH
I
want to comment on this film
