Bad Boys: Ride or Die explained

What is Bad Boys: Ride or Die about?

Ride of Die is about faith. Whether that’s a spiritual faith after a near-death experience, a crisis of faith that results in panic attacks, or believing in someone’s character despite evidence to the contrary. That idea of loyalty and faith comes through in the title being “ride or die”. The film also provides redemption for Armando and has Mike wrestle with his cartel-related past in the form of McGrath. 

Cast

• Mike Lowrey – Will Smith
• Marcus Burnett – Martin Lawrence
• Armando Aretas – Jacob Scipio
• Christine – Melanie Liburd
• Theresa Burnett – Tasha Smith
• Reggie – Dennis Greene
• Kelly – Vanessa Hudgens
• Dorn – Alexander Ludwig
• Captain Conrad Howard – Joe Pantoliano
• Judy Howard – Rhea Seehorn
• Callie Howard – Quinn Hemphill
• Rita – Paola Núñez
• Adam Lockwood – Ioan Gruffudd
• James McGrath – Eric Dane
• Written by – Chris Bremner | Will Beall
• Directed by – Adil & Bilall

Bad Boys: Ride or Die explores faith

While Bad Boys films aren’t known for having deep thematic concepts, that doesn’t mean there isn’t anything. In Ride of Die, faith is the focus. This is most obvious with Marcus. His heart attack triggers a surreal trip into visions of the afterlife. While you could chalk this up to hallucinations brought on by a near-death experience, the way the vision foreshadows various story beats adds a validity to Marcus’s experience. So when he talks with the spirit of Captain Howard, it’s meaningful.

The whole experience has convinced Marcus that it’s not his time, that he, quote, “can’t die.” He believes fate will intervene on his behalf, until his designated hour. This faith in fate, in what you could say was a spiritual experience, has given Marcus a confidence and joy that carries through the film. 

On the opposite end of the spectrum, you have Mike. His panic attacks indicate a loss of faith in himself. The climax of which happens when Mike can’t take the shot during the rescue of Christine and Callie. Even though he has the reticle on McGrath, he’s too nervous, too self-doubting, to pull the trigger. Of course, near the end, he also has a vision of Howard, and that helps him regain whatever he had lost. So that in the final showdown with McGrath we see Mike’s confidence back in full. 

The main conflicts also tie back to ideas of faith. Specifically, faith in the people around you. The cartel frames Captain Howard as a corrupt cop. Others take the evidence at face value. But Mike and Marcus refuse. They remain loyal, faithful, to their friend’s memory. The same thing happens when McGrath makes it look like our heroes led the attack on the helicopter in order to free Armando. Kelly and Dorn, the other members of AMMO, never doubt Marcus and Mike. Then Rita loses faith in Adam. And Marcus gains faith in his son-in-law, Reggie, after Reggie defends the house. 

None of this is handled in a particularly deep or literary way. But you can see that the writers and filmmakers endeavored to unify the various storylines through a single theme. I, for one, always appreciate and respect that effort. 

Marcus’s vision of the beach

I thought this was kind of cool. When Marcus declares he can’t die, we understand it has something to do with his vision. The vision had a lot of locations scattered throughout but it concluded on that beach with Captain Howard. Because we know Howard’s deceased, we associate that location with the afterlife. That’s where spirits go. And it’s there that Howard tells Marcus that it’s not Marcus’s time. 

So there’s no tension around Marcus’s mortality. Until the end. When Marcus is looking for McGrath and Christine and stumbles upon a beach. He sees the same driftwood from his vision. The parrot is also there. This is the place where his soul was going before Howard turned him away. This is done to force viewers to wonder if this is where Marcus is supposed to die. That’s  heightened when McGrath takes him hostage and forces Mike to choose between Marcus and Christine. 

While we don’t expect anything bad to happen to the main characters, because of plot armor, having the callback to the vision at least forces audiences to wonder, at least for a second, if something could happen to Marcus. Again, it’s not groundbreaking or anything, but it’s nice that they were trying to make us care.  

Armando protects Callie

I wouldn’t be surprised if they pass the franchise onto Jacob Scipio. Or do some kind of spin-off. So much of Ride of Die was about redeeming the character. That culminates with how he protects Callie. 

The thing that made Armando a major villain was that he assassinated Captain Howard in Bad Boys for Life. It’s brought up constantly in Ride or Die. While they start to redeem him at the end of for Life, it’s a huge subplot of Ride or Die. He gets a badass action scene. Gets to be a Vin Diesel like cool guy for most of the film. And then defends Howard’s granddaughter. 

Despite Armando joining in, he was still being a jerk. So still far from redemption. But when it comes to Callie, he takes damage. He puts himself in harm’s way. He values her life more than his own. By winning her over, he wins the audience over. We see there’s another side to him, a more humble, vulnerable, heroic side that we can root for. That’s why the film then has Rhea Seehorn show up, full of righteous fury. Her anger towards Armando now clashes with our newfound positive feelings. He deserves to live! But here she is trying to shoot him. By having her so angry, it causes viewers to hope she relents. It causes us to feel even more attachment and concern for Armando. When she does, we’re relieved. 

So, yeah, they definitely have bigger things in store for the character. 

I do want to say that I appreciated Armando’s redemption way more than Jason Statham’s in the Fast & Furious franchise. He had a similar character arc. Started as a villain who kills off a main character. Then events cause him to be part of the group. Personally, I never thought they did enough to have him earn his way into the “family”. Very little remorse. Very little in the way of self-sacrifice to earn respect. It was always weird with me that they’d all just be like “Yeah, it’s cool.” Someone might argue that since Han’s alive everything’s fine. But the group didn’t know that for several movies and were just completely cool with Shaw. Eh. So I appreciated how Ride or Die put in a bit more effort. 

James McGrath is an evil version of Mike Lowrey

In Bad Boys for Life, we learn that Mike had been undercover in the cartel. He fell in love with Isabel, Armando’s mom, and the two almost ran off together. Except he realized she was pretty evil, so he “chose the badge”. 

McGrath was a DEA officer in an operation against the cartel. Except things went south and he and his team ended up tortured. McGrath survived because he decided to turn. For years, he’s been a major soldier for the cartel. 

While McGrath doesn’t have the exact backstory as Mike, they’re similar in the sense that both ended up at a crossroads where they had to decide if they would commit to the cartel. Mike would have done it out of love. McGrath did it out of survival. Regardless, McGrath becomes this Mike-Who-Could-Have-Been. So by defeating McGrath, he’s defeating that part of himself. 

In some ways, it’s also part of saving Armando. In for Life, Armando had been under his mom’s toxic influence. She turned him into a killer. By defeating her, it opened up a path for Armando to recover. McGrath embodies the tensions that still exist between father and son. Overcoming him is what allows the pair to start fresh. 

Are the Bad Boys films connected?

Now they are! The revelation that the US government had worked with the cartels means that events in Bad Boys 2 tie together with events from for Life which are now explained in Ride or Die. It gives the whole franchise a lot more narrative cohesion. Which wasn’t necessary but is nice. 

What was Mike’s choice?

Marcus speaks in riddles when he tells Mike how Mike will have to make a hard choice. Which is exactly what we see when McGrath has Christine and Marcus as hostages. McGrath says one of them will die. At that moment, Mike recalls not only Marcus’s words about the choice but also Marcus’s declaration that he can’t die, how fate would intervene. Which connects back to the theme of faith that we talked about earlier. Mike has faith in Marcus’s vision, so shoots Marcus, knowing everything will be okay. That surprises McGrath long enough for Mike to finish the job. 

Was Gatorville a real place?

There’s a real place called Gatorland, that is a legit gator-centric park, located in Gainesville, FL. But it did not and does not have a 16-foot albino gator. One source said the largest alligator was 19 feet. Another says 15.