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National Security
Although it's enjoyable as a brainless diversion, National Security is one of those forgettable entertainments that denies its own considerable potential. It's a police action comedy in the mold of Beverly Hills Cop, tailored to the buddy-flick formula and laced with racial tensions of the post-Rodney King era. It's set in Los Angeles, where dedicated cop Hank (Steve Zahn) does jail time for allegedly beating Earl (Martin Lawrence), whose only real assailant was an overzealous bumblebee. As fate and lazy screenwriting would have it, the two adversaries reunite as security guards, teaming up to crack a team of violent smugglers led by bleached-blonde Eric Roberts (further proof that this movie's got nothing new to offer). Routine stunts distract from the comedy's mostly untapped resource: Lawrence pointedly riffs on racial profiling, and his prolific ad-libs play well against Zahn's by-the-book straight man. If their partnership had been allowed to develop more believably, National Security might have been more than a blip on the box-office radar. --Jeff Shannon Money Train
This attempt to reunite the stars of White Men Can't Jump will most likely be remembered as the movie that allegedly inspired a number of copycat arsons in the New York subway system. In other words, the movie itself is too perfunctory to be remembered for any other reason. Woody Harrelson and Wesley Snipes share their established chemistry as a pair of stepbrothers who work the subway detail as undercover detectives in the NYPD. Woody's a compulsive gambler with a huge debt problem to contend with, and he's also competing with his brother for the attentions of their new and beautiful partner (Jennifer Lopez), who's been assigned to join their investigation of the subway crimes. They're also supposed to guard the daily money train (so named because it contains each day's worth of subway fares), but Woody gets the bright idea that it might be the solution to his money woes. What follows is standard-issue action fare for the mid-1990s--lots of violence, excessive profanity, and attempts at witty banter between the costars to make it all seem more entertaining than it really is. You'd need to be a serious Harrelson, Snipes, or Lopez fan to add this movie to your collection. For anyone else, one viewing ought to be enough. --Jeff Shannon Blue Streak
Martin Lawrence can certainly talk a blue streak (witness his concert film, You So Crazy), but he tones it down to PG-13 for this by-the-book action comedy. Lawrence stars as Logan, a bank robber and jewel thief (nice role model we're supposed to cheer for) who, just before he is arrested, manages to stash the $20 million diamond he has just heisted at a construction site. When he is released from prison two years later, he returns to the scene of the crime only to find that the completed building houses a police station. To get inside and retrieve the precious gem he secures a fake ID and passes himself off as LAPD's newest, and most unorthodox, detective. As he demonstrated on his TV series, Lawrence has a knack for characterization second to Eddie Murphy. But he's no Beverly Hills Cop. Indulgent sequences where Martin has seemingly been given free reign to ad-lib are the film's weakest. Early on, Logan cases the police station outlandishly disguised as a snaggle-toothed, Geri-curled pizza deliveryman. You'd think the last thing his character would want to do is call attention to himself. Lawrence is at his best in the scenes in which, thanks to all those years of breaking and entering, his formerly lawless character proves to be a natural at cracking burglary cases. Logan is paired with the requisite white partner, Carlson (Luke Wilson), a buttoned-up rookie. Departing from the Lethal Weapon, buddy-movie playbook, they are not antagonists; theirs is more a teacher-mentor relationship. "Don't we need a warrant to do that?" Carlson asks Logan at one point. "We don't even need a key," Logan responds, picking a lock. There is little in Blue that is remotely fresh, but Lawrence fans, who watched him play it straight opposite Murphy in Life, will relish the opportunity to see him get down with his bad self. --Donald Liebenson
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