Blue Streak

A lifetime criminal gets caught during a diamond heist but leaves the $17 million stolen diamond hidden in a vent of a building under construction. As soon as he gets out of jail, he returns to the scene of the crime, only to find that the building has been turned into a police station. The only way into the edifice is to “pretend” to be a police officer, which is exactly what our con man sets out to do.

If you like Martin Lawrence, the stand-up comedian, you will most likely enjoy this movie packed with Lawrence-based humor, as long as you can dismiss its generic screenplay which is predictable and spotted with forgivable holes. I enjoy Lawrence when he’s “on”, and baby let me tell you, this film lets him go all out! The premise of the movie allows you to be “in on the joke” from the start, giving you more reason to laugh when Lawrence goes off on his crazy shite. I laughed out loud during several scenes of Martin’s schtick, but also noticed a couple of lulls here and there, and a horribly annoying rap-electro-dance soundtrack. Drag that damn cow out to pasture already! Having said that, Mrs. JoBlo loved the soundtrack, so it might just be me. 🙂 Idiot white-boy sidekick Luke Wilson also did a decent job of acting like a bumbling fool, as did the rest of the paper thin characters spread around Martin’s ball of contagious humor.

Don’t get me wrong here, folks, I don’t go into these films expecting awesome screenplays and deep characters anyway, so I won’t bother rating this film on that unrelated scale. You go to see this kind of movie because you want to laugh. Did I laugh? Yes, I laughed a-plenty and it eased away, at least for that sweet moment, some of the pain that continually drips through my useless existence from the minute I step out of my grungy bed in the mornings, to the moment I drop the proverbial kleenex in the toilet bowl at nights (Just kidding! Just wanted to make sure that people are actually reading my reviews all the way through :). Gotcha! Anyway, back to my critique. Martin Lawrence is a funny man, and if you don’t think he’s funny, do not go see this movie, because besides him, there ain’t much else going on. Consider it a BEVERLY HILLS COP Junior, cloned within 48 HOURS, but without the over-abundancy of swear words. I also enjoyed it from a child’s perspective, since Lawrence’s character was essentially getting away with everything that I wanted to be as a kid…and kickin’ some mighty ass in the meantime, I must say! All in all, a funny, safe Martin Lawrence vehicle based on a cute premise.

(c) 2021 Berge Garabedian