Will Smith and Martin Lawrence Chase Down a Ghost in Bad Boys: Ride or Die

Mike Lowrey and Marcus Burnett are still running, and still talking through it. Bad Boys: Ride or Die brings back Will Smith and Martin Lawrence for a fourth outing as Miami detectives, with the late Captain Conrad Howard’s name at the center of it all. The setup is simple: Howard is framed for conspiracy, and Lowrey and Burnett try to clear his name. What follows is a chase across Miami that never quite earns its stakes.

Trailer, via Sony Pictures Entertainment.

Howard’s Shadow

The film opens four years after Isabel Aretas’s death, with Mike marrying his physical therapist, Christine. Marcus suffers a heart attack during the reception and slips into a coma, where he hears Howard’s voice telling him he cannot die. That scene sets the tone: Howard’s ghost hangs over the whole picture, and the script leans on it heavily.

The plot thickens when a money launderer transfers a large sum to Howard’s account and fabricates transaction records before Howard is killed. News reports link him to a cartel. Mike and Marcus team up with Captain Rita Secada and her boyfriend, mayoral candidate Adam Lockwood, to prove Howard’s innocence. Their target is Armando Aretas, Mike’s son, who was imprisoned for Howard’s death.

Armando reveals that Howard wasn’t corrupt but understood who was, and was killed to keep their secrets. He agrees to help identify the killer. The conspirators try to access Howard’s computer, triggering a fail-safe video that warns of corruption within law enforcement. Howard uses the code phrase “Coke bottle,” and it turns out he gave information to their former hacker colleague Fletcher.

Fletcher’s Club

Mike and Marcus head to Fletcher’s club to retrieve the files, a QR code hidden in wall art that unlocks a second video from Howard. Assassins hired by the conspirators follow them and kill Fletcher. Armando is attacked by prisoners paid to silence him, but he fights them off. Mike and Marcus arrange for Armando to be air-lifted to a more secure location in Miami, where the conspirators sneak aboard and kill the pilot and guards.

The chase scenes are busy but hollow. The film spends more time on the banter between Lowrey and Burnett than on the actual case. Smith and Lawrence play the familiar rhythm, and it mostly works, but the script never lets the stakes rise enough to justify the action.

The Numbers

• Runtime: 116 minutes
• Directors: Adil El Arbi, Bilall Fallah
• Writers: Chris Bremner, Will Beall
• Cast: Will Smith, Martin Lawrence, Vanessa Hudgens, Alexander Ludwig, Paola Nuñez, Eric Dane, Ioan Gruffudd, Jacob Scipio, Melanie Liburd, Tasha Smith, Rhea Seehorn, Tiffany Haddish
• Cameo: Michael Bay as a Porsche driver

The franchise has always been about Lowrey and Burnett, and this installment stays faithful to that dynamic. But the story loses focus. The corruption scheme is hinted at but never fully explained, and the chase scenes feel like filler between jokes. The film also deals with the aftermath of the incident at the 2022 Academy Awards, with production halted in April 2022 before restarting in February 2023.

Smith and Lawrence remain the engine, and their rapport carries stretches of the film. Hudgens, Ludwig, Nuñez and Dane round out the cast, but the script doesn’t give them much to do beyond support. The cameo from Bay, who directed the first two films, is a nod to history, though it adds nothing to the plot.

Bad Boys: Ride or Die isn’t bad, exactly. It’s just not particularly good. The comedy lands sometimes, the action is competent, and the performances are solid. But the story is thin, the stakes are muddled, and the runtime feels padded. This is a franchise that knows how to deliver a fun hour and a half, even if it doesn’t know how to deliver a great one.

Bad Boys · Martin Lawrence · Miami · movie review · Will Smith