Bad Company

These UK producers have been rocking the dancefloors since their initial release in 1998. Although referred to by most as "Bad Company", they insist that they are "An anonymous collective misrepresented by an unpronouncable logo". Their first release - The Nine / The Bridge - landed itself at number one on the BBC 1 drum & bass charts for quite sometime. This anonymous collective has had a huge impact on the scene in the past two years, and it can only be assumed that this impact will grow stronger in the future.

In the year 2210 Earth is locked in a war with a vicious, super-intelligent (and damn ugly) race called the Krool. The theatre of war is Arrarat, an alien world mid-way between Earth and the Krool homeworld, and the perfect bridge-head for an offensive against Earth.

Danny Franks is a soldier with Earth's regular army. Against such a ferocious enemy and after heavy losses in all quarters Danny feels that the war is about to end and he and all the other Earth soldiers will die. When the Krool attack however the enemy are defeated by a bunch of mean, ragged soldiers. Bad Company.

The men are lead by Kano, a man with most of his skull missing and a singular determination to kill Krool. There is Mad Tommy who thinks he's fighting in World War 2. There's Thrax, who is missing his skin, Flytrap whose arm was replaced with a venus flytrap-like plant arm as part of a Krool experiment. And there's Malcolm, a regular soldier, new to Bad Company.

The renegade company, who launch raids behind enemy lines conscript the few who survived the attack.

They don't last long.

Along with Krool, the Bad Company have to face renegade earthers - the Skull Crew, zombie earth soldiers, the various flora and fauna of the planet, and not least, each other.

In the tradition of journey story-lines, the true journey is made by Danny as he comes to terms with the fact that his humanity diminishes the more he perseveres.

The series finishes in a planet-shattering battle, after which some crucial mysteries are revealed - especially the true nature and history of Kano.

The original series of Bad Company ran over 19 issues starting from issue 500.

"I know, let's make a buddy-cop movie with academy award winner Anthony Hopkins and stalwart funnyman Chris Rock. It'll be great, all we gotta do is just point the cameras at these guys and watch the chemistry ensue. It'll be massive at the box office."

"Yeah, um, sure. Sounds great. Roll the cameras."

Never have I a felt so cheated leaving a movie theatre. I was dubious enough going in (Chris Rock & Anthony Hopkins? They shouldn't even be in the same sentence) but I was almost raging by the time the credits rolled. Everything about this movie stinks. The storyline is beyond stupid. In fact, the storyline has it's own fucking dimension of stupidity because there isn't enough stupid in this one to define it. Chris Rock has a twin brother who works in the CIA. Chris is unaware that he has a brother. Brother gets killed during a CIA operation, just before he was about to do a major deal with some terrorists. The CIA need the deal done, so they call on Chris Rock to stand in on his brothers behalf "with hilarious consequences."

Rock's character is the wise cracking, homeboy, hustler dude from some keep darky down neigborhood.

Hopkins in the big serious CIA dude committed to turning Rock's character into that of his dead brother.

From streetwise punk to CIA sleuth in 9 days. Oh the hilarity of it all!

Action - Chris Rock does something funny, Anthony Hopkins furrows his brow - Car Chase - Chris Rock does something funny, Anthony Hopkins furrows his brow - Shootout - Chris Rock does something funny, Anthony Hopkins furrows his brow - End Of Movie.

It's almost like someone got Jerry Brucheimer, Joel Shcumacer, Chris Rock and Anthony Hopkins, put them in a room and said: "Hey guys, thanks for coming. Here's the deal, we have a shit load of money, a diabolical plot, a shite concept and we want to make the worst movie of all time. Who's in?"

Here's what some other people have to say:
"The umpteenth summer skinny dip in Jerry Bruckheimer's putrid pond of retread action twaddle."
-- Walter Chaw, FILM FREAK CENTRAL

"Scores no points for originality, wit, or intelligence. ItÂ’s a cookie-cutter movie, a cut-and-paste job."
-- Mark Dujsik, MARK REVIEWS MOVIES

"This bizarre, botched spy thriller is bad enough to rank as a waste of time and money; it should have remained on the shelf."
-- Susan Granger, WWW.SUSANGRANGER.COM

"Welcome to my church, where we worship money," says the film's Czech ghoul. Words fit for Bruckheimer."
-- Ed Gonzalez, SLANT MAGAZINE

Don't rush out and watch this movie with the attitude "Hey, it's sounds so bad, it's gotta be good!". It's just plain bad, nothing else. There's a couple of songs on the soundtrack from Tricky, Outkast and Blu Cantrell that have some redeeming value, but they do nothing for this rotten egg of a movie.

Avoid like the plague.

Bad Company was also a 1972 movie starring Jeff Bridges. It is described as a "thoughtful western" on IMDB. Here is a plot summary from the All Movie Guide:

Set during the Civil War, Bad Company stars Barry Brown as a Northern boy who heads West to avoid getting drafted. He falls under the spell of Jeff Bridges, an easygoing young con artist. Brown joins Bridges' gang of boy bandits, who live by their wits and try to avoid confrontation with adult criminals like David Huddleston. It is Brown who must eventually save Bridges from hanging, even though his intervention may result in his own execution.

Hmm, that 1972 release date is kind of suspicious, isn't it. Alas, there is a connection!

I once heard Paul Rodgers state in an interview¹ that the title of the just-released movie provided the 'inspiration' for the name of his newly formed arena rock act. Hence that pseudo-western / tumbleweed-ish sound of the triply redundant title track of the supergroup's first album.

Bad Company
Paramount, 1972
UPC: 97360847642
1 hour, 32 minutes
Directed by Robert Benton

So far we have two completely unrelated movies and two completely unrelated musical groups using this name. What else it out there?