Bad Boys | |
---|---|
![]() Theatrical release poster | |
Directed by | Rick Rosenthal |
Written by | Richard DiLello |
Produced by | Robert H. Solo |
Starring | |
Cinematography | |
Edited by | Antony Gibbs |
Music by | Bill Conti |
Production companies |
|
Distributed by | Universal Pictures Associated Film Distribution |
Release date |
|
Running time |
|
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $5 million[ citation needed ] |
Box office | $9.2 million [1] |
Bad Boys is a 1983 American coming-of-age [2] crime drama film set in a juvenile detention center, starring Sean Penn, Esai Morales, and Clancy Brown, Alan Ruck and Ally Sheedy in their film debuts. The film is directed by Rick Rosenthal. The original music score was composed by Bill Conti.
Mick O'Brien is a 16-year-old Irish-American hoodlum from Chicago. Mick's crimes include snatching purses, shoplifting, vandalism, and fighting, but he aspires to bigger and meaner things. He subsequently attempts to rip off his Puerto Rican rival, Paco Moreno, but the plan goes awry, leading to Mick's best friend Carl being fatally shot and Mick accidentally running over and killing Paco's eight-year-old brother while making his getaway in a stolen car.
Mick is convicted and sent to Rainford Juvenile Correctional Facility. Most of the supervisors there have lowered themselves to the role of zookeepers; one exception is counselor Ramon Herrera, a former gang member. He talks tough to the inmates, but is confident that some of them, especially Mick, can turn their lives around.
Mick's cellmate is Barry Horowitz, a small, intelligent Jewish kid who firebombed a bowling alley after some boys there assaulted him for flirting with their girlfriends. Their cell block is dominated by a pair of brawny sadists named "Viking" Lofgren and Warren "Tweety" Jerome, who take an immediate dislike to Mick. Mick puts up with them at first, but after witnessing Tweety murdering another inmate (who attempted to stab Tweety in retaliation for raping him), he refuses to be intimidated.
Suspecting that Mick may have revealed Tweety's guilt to the authorities, Tweety and Viking go to Mick's cell to confront him about this. But Mick, having anticipated their arrival, outsmarts them by beating them up with a pillowcase full of unopened soda cans. This victory earns him the respect of the block and recognition as the new "barn boss." Tweety is paroled soon afterwards, but is later killed during an attempted robbery at a liquor store.
In vengeance for his brother's death, Paco attacks and rapes Mick's girlfriend, J.C., but is caught and arrested. After learning this, Mick is overcome with desire to see J.C., so he and Barry escape the double perimeter fences through the use of a paste that weakens the links enough to kick a hole through them. While running through the woods, Barry falls on some barbed wire and is caught by two supervisors on their trail; this gives Mick time to get away, but Barry is subsequently beaten by one of the supervisors for escaping and calling him a name. Ramon rightfully believes that Mick will go to J.C.'s house and soon picks him up there. Before returning to Rainford, Ramon takes Mick to visit a maximum security prison, to show him where he could end up if he continues to live the life of a criminal.
After being convicted of the rape on J.C., Paco is sentenced to the same dormitory at Rainford as Mick. The staff are fully aware of this potential danger, but no other reform school has a vacancy. Paco attempts to provoke Mick into a fight, but Mick avoids the confrontation, since he may qualify for early release if he stays out of trouble. However, he also loses the respect of many of the inmates, who now want to see Paco put Mick away.
In an attempt to retaliate on Mick's behalf, Barry creates a bomb by planting fertilizer in a radio that he places in the cell Viking and Paco share. But when the charge explodes prematurely and only Viking is injured, Barry is condemned to solitary confinement for the remainder of his sentence, a fate he fears more than any other.
Paco accidentally learns he is being transferred to another facility the next day, so he decides to kill Mick that night. While Ramon is on night watch, Paco fakes a ruptured appendix, knocks Ramon unconscious, and locks him in the office. Paco then goes to Mick's cell to stab him with a shiv; Mick gets the jump on Paco, however, and they start fighting. The other inmates are awakened by the brawl, and some barricade the door to the dormitory to prevent the authorities from interfering. Eventually, Mick gains the upper hand on Paco and prepares to deliver a fatal stab wound with the shiv while being encouraged by the others to kill. However, he resists at the last second, instead stabbing the floor mat next to Paco's head. Mick then drags a beaten Paco to the supervisors and heads back to his cell, crying remorsefully beneath his breath.
The idea for the film came from producer Robert Solo who told writer Richard Di Lello he was looking for "a Jimmy Cagney story set in a modern day reform school." Di Lello produced a ten-page treatment which Solo liked. He gave the approval to do a screenplay. Di Lello spent about a year writing the screenplay which he says later mostly came from his imagination, with minimal research; he later did research and found it corresponded with what he had written. "My imagination turned out to be far more accurate than I ever anticipated," he said. [3]
Solo hired Rick Rosenthal to direct. [3] Rosenthal later said when he first read the script, "I got to page 90, when there'd been a little kid killed, and I said to myself, 'This is reality, but I can't do this, there's just no redeeming value in the whole thing.'... I got to the end. I accepted. Some script changes were made - I think the script was humanized. It's still a hard film, a tough film, but with soul underneath, and I think with social comment that doesn't hit you on the head." [4]
The script was violent but the filmmakers felt this was necessary to tell the story accurately. "I'm a commercial filmmaker first and foremost," said Solo. "This movie is about young people and the youth audience is the primary one. I simply wanted Bad Boys to have a tremendous reality. How do you tell this story without violence? If you don't, you're saying violence doesn't exist." [5]
Finance was obtained from EMI Films. [5]
Rick Rosenthal says Matt Dillon wanted to play the lead role, but the director was reluctant. He cast Sean Penn (aged 22 at the time of filming) on the basis of a reading. "Although I'm crazy about Matt Dillon as an actor, I thought he'd already done the role in My Bodyguard," said Rosenthal. "I was also afraid that the audience might be conscious of a new movie star, where with Penn they'd only be conscious of Mick." The director said Penn is "a very good actor, obsessively so. He went into character for the whole shoot and stayed there, had a real wolf's head tattooed on his arm, checked into hotels as Mick, the whole thing." [4]
It was Ally Sheedy's first role in a feature. "Rick really took a chance on me, he really did," she said. [6]
While filming the escape scene, Sean Penn broke an ankle which halted shooting for three months.
The film unit spent six days filming in St Charles, Illinois, a suburb west of Chicago. They employed about forty residents as extras. [3]
Universal Studios originally released Bad Boys in 1983, and Thorn/EMI released it on the Beta and VHS videocassette formats later that year, but in 1999 Artisan Entertainment took the rights and released the DVD. With the exceptions of the original videocassette release and a laser videodisc reissue by HBO Video in 1990, most releases used an edited 104-minute version until 2001, when Anchor Bay Entertainment took its DVD rights and re-released it, and in 2007 Facets Multimedia Distribution re-released it on DVD. [7] Bad Boys was released on Blu-ray by Lionsgate Home Entertainment for the first time on February 1, 2011, presented "complete and uncut." It is also available for online streaming video rentals and digital download purchases through Amazon Video and Apple iTunes Store.
Bad Boys garnered generally positive reviews; review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes currently holds a 90% "Fresh" rating based on 20 reviews. [8] David Denby of The New Yorker magazine argued, "Bad Boys is never less than tense and exciting, but it's coarse and grisly, an essentially demagogic piece of work". [9]
In his original review, Roger Ebert praised the direction and cinematography in particular and wrote, "The direction, by Richard Rosenthal, is sure-footed, confident and fluid; we are in the hands of a fine director". [10] In her review for The New York Times , Janet Maslin wrote, "Sean Penn's performance is the chief thing that separates Bad Boys from mere exploitation". [11] Perry Seibert of All Media Guide said "Bad Boys proves that great performances can overcome routine story lines." [12]
Rosenthal later said "I think I turned down around 20 or 22 films after Bad Boys. The phone rang all the time. The funny thing is, at the time I didn't know I was hot. But after American Dreamer, I knew the difference." [13]
The soundtrack of the film comprised some late, eccentric funk tracks, as well as Billy Squier and Iron Maiden.
The name of the Croatian ultras group Bad Blue Boys (who support GNK Dinamo Zagreb) is said to have been inspired by Bad Boys.
Tweety is a yellow canary in the Warner Bros. Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of animated cartoons. The name "Tweety" is a play on words, as it originally meant "sweetie", along with "tweet" being an English onomatopoeia for the sounds of birds. His characteristics are based on Red Skelton's famous "Junior the Mean Widdle Kid." He appeared in 46 cartoons during the golden age, made between 1942 and 1964.
Sean Justin Penn is an American actor and film director. He has won Academy Awards for his roles in the mystery drama Mystic River (2003) and the biopic Milk (2008).
I Am Sam is a 2001 American drama film co-written and directed by Jessie Nelson. It stars Sean Penn, Michelle Pfeiffer, Dianne Wiest, Dakota Fanning, Elle Fanning, Richard Schiff, Loretta Devine and Laura Dern.
The Brat Pack is a nickname given to a group of young actors who frequently appeared together in teen-oriented coming-of-age films in the 1980s. The term "Brat Pack", a play on the Rat Pack from the 1950s and 1960s, was first popularized in a 1985 New York magazine cover story, which described a group of highly successful film stars in their early twenties. David Blum wrote the article after witnessing several young actors being mobbed by groupies at Los Angeles' Hard Rock Cafe. The group has been characterized by the partying of members such as Demi Moore, Emilio Estevez, Rob Lowe, and Judd Nelson.
Frederick Jay Rubin is an American record executive and record producer. He is a co-founder of Def Jam Recordings, founder of American Recordings, and former co-president of Columbia Records.
Alexandra Elizabeth Sheedy is an American actress. She made her feature film debut in Bad Boys (1983) and came to prominence as a member of the Brat Pack with roles in Oxford Blues (1984), The Breakfast Club (1985), St. Elmo's Fire (1985), and Blue City (1986). She received three Saturn Award nominations for Best Actress for her performances in WarGames (1983), Fear (1990), and Man's Best Friend (1993). For playing a drug-addicted lesbian photographer in High Art (1998), Sheedy won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead. She also starred in the films Twice in a Lifetime (1985), Short Circuit (1986), Betsy's Wedding (1990), Only the Lonely (1991), and Life During Wartime (2009), as well as the series Single Drunk Female (2022–2023).
Sleepers is a 1996 American legal crime drama film written, produced and directed by Barry Levinson, and based on Lorenzo Carcaterra's 1995 book of the same name. The film stars Kevin Bacon, Jason Patric, Brad Pitt, Robert De Niro, Dustin Hoffman, Minnie Driver, Vittorio Gassman, Brad Renfro, Ron Eldard, Jeffrey Donovan, Terry Kinney, Joe Perrino, Geoffrey Wigdor, Jonathan Tucker, Bruno Kirby and Billy Crudup. The title is a slang term for juvenile delinquents who serve sentences longer than nine months.
Kicking Against the Pricks is the third album released by the rock music group Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. First released in 1986, the album is a collection of Cave's interpretations of songs by other artists. The title is a reference to a biblical quote from the King James version of the Bible, Acts 26, verse 14.
Shanghai Surprise is a 1986 adventure comedy film directed by Jim Goddard and starring then-newlyweds Sean Penn and Madonna. The screenplay was adapted by John Kohn and Robert Bentley from Tony Kenrick's 1978 novel Faraday's Flowers. Produced by George Harrison's HandMade Films and distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Harrison himself appears in the film as a night club singer, and he wrote and recorded five original songs for the soundtrack: "Shanghai Surprise", "Someplace Else", "Breath Away from Heaven", "Zig Zag", and "Hottest Gong in Town". The film was a critical and commercial failure, and an official soundtrack album was never released.
Christopher Shannon Penn was an American actor. He was the brother of actor Sean Penn and musician Michael Penn. Noted as a skilled character actor, he was typically cast as a tough character, featured as a villain or a working-class thug, or in a comic role and had roles in such films as To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar,The Wild Life, Reservoir Dogs, The Funeral, Footloose, Rush Hour, Corky Romano, True Romance, Beethoven's 2nd, Short Cuts, The Boys Club, All the Right Moves, At Close Range, Pale Rider, and Starsky & Hutch. During his career Penn had won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor for his performance in The Funeral. He also provided the voice of corrupt cop Edward "Eddie" Pulaski in the video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.
The Longest Cocktail Party is a book by Richard DiLello, published in 1972 by Playboy Press in the US and Canada and Charisma in the UK, and reprinted in 1981, 1983, 1997 and 2005. The Longest Cocktail Party is one man's account of the history of the Beatles' company Apple Corps, the break-up of the Beatles, and the beginning of their solo careers.
Birds Anonymous is a 1957 Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies animated short, directed by Friz Freleng and written by Warren Foster. The short was released on August 10, 1957, and stars Tweety and Sylvester.
Richard L. Rosenthal, Jr. is an American film instructor and director, known for directing Halloween II and Halloween: Resurrection.
Stroker Ace is a 1983 American action comedy sport film directed by Hal Needham and starring Burt Reynolds as the eponymous Stroker Ace, a NASCAR driver.
"Everybody Wants You" is a hit song written and performed by American rock singer and guitarist Billy Squier. It appeared as the opening track of his multi-Platinum 1982 album Emotions in Motion, and was released as the second single from that album, reaching #31 on the Cash Box Top 100 and #32 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. It became, however, a much bigger hit on AOR radio, gridlocking the top spot of Mainstream Rock charts for six weeks straight. The song's music video also remained in heavy rotation for months on MTV.
Forever Strong is a 2008 American sports drama film directed by Ryan Little, written by David Pliler and released on September 26, 2008. The film stars Sean Faris, Gary Cole, Neal McDonough, Sean Astin, Penn Badgley and Arielle Kebbel. The film is about a troubled rugby union player who must play against the team his father coaches at the national championships. Forever Strong is based on a compilation of individual true stories.
Bad Ol' Putty Tat is a 1949 Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies animated cartoon directed by Friz Freleng. The short was released on July 23, 1949, and stars Tweety and Sylvester.
A Bird in a Bonnet is a 1958 Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies animated short directed by Friz Freleng. The voices were performed by Mel Blanc, Daws Butler and June Foray. The short was released on September 27, 1958, and stars Tweety and Sylvester.
"Reaction to Action" is the third single taken from the album Agent Provocateur by the band Foreigner. It was written by Lou Gramm and Mick Jones.
"Rock Me Tonite" is a hit song written and recorded by American rock artist Billy Squier. It was released in June 1984 as the lead single from his platinum-plus album Signs of Life. The song is Squier's highest charting U.S. single, peaking at No. 15 on the Billboard Hot 100 and hitting No. 10 on the Cash Box singles chart. It also returned him to No. 1 on the Top Rock Tracks chart in August 1984.