Bad Company stars Rock as Jake Hayes, a down-on-his luck man who barely scrapes by scalping tickets, hustling people at chess, and spinning the occasional record as a DJ. Frustrated with the lifestyle, his girlfriend Julie tells Jake she is leaving him, breaking Jake's heart. Jake is offered some hope for patching things up with his girlfriend and getting his life together when he is suddenly contacted by the CIA and recruited to help them complete a mission. Apparently, Jake had a twin-brother named Kevin who died before the last mission was completed , and the CIA can only complete the mission if Jake acts as Kevin for them. In exchange, the CIA promises Jake enough money to start over and build a life for he and Julie. However, in recruiting Jake, the CIA has its work cut out for it as Jake grew up in an entirely different world Harvard-educated, wealthy brother. After the setup, the film focuses on the difficulties in the CIA making Jake a believable Kevin, the relationship between Jake and fellow CIA agent Gaylord Oakes (Anthony Hopkins), and the mission itself and its problems.
While Bad Company is not a horrible movie, it is highly mediocre for an action film. As is clear from the set up, the film is rife with cliches-mismatched partners, a highly technical mission, and a loose canon agent. It is Lethal Weapon with the roles reversed mixed with Mission Impossible. Moreover, it is not as successful as a film as some of its predecessors from which it borrows. The high tech scenes and the action sequences are nothing particularly dazzling. Bad Company also does not quite work as a buddy picture. There was a lot of potential teaming Chris Rock and Anthony Hopkins, but the film fails to establish much of a real relationship between the two characters. It seems that the script fails to provide the characters' any personal connection-as the on-screen time between the two characters involves little interaction that is not related to the job and the conflict between the characters' personalities is not played to its full potential. Oakes is just a CIA man that was saved by Jake's brother and who is more important to the mission than the rest of the agents-that is all. Also, Rock and Hopkins lack the chemistry of former cop film duos such as Mel Gibson and Danny Glover from the Lethal Weapon series and Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy of 48 Hrs.
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