Blue Streak (1999)

Starring: Martin Lawrence, Luke Wilson, Dave Chappelle, Peter Greene, William Forsythe, Octavia Spencer, and John Hawkes
Grade: A-

I miss when Martin Lawrence was on top. Am I alone in this?

Summary

Miles Logan (Lawrence) is a big-time jewel thief and is doing a job in Los Angeles with his group consisting of Deacon (Greene), Eddie (Hawkes), and Tulley (Chappelle). They’re on the roof of a high-rise building, and Miles and Eddie create an opening for themselves while Deacon hacks the cameras. When Deacon lets them know he’s in, Miles asks about the alarm and Deacon snaps at him because he’s obviously going to work on that next. Miles tries to cool things down and reminds him that they run a loose crew around here, and Deacon snidely agrees saying, “You’re the boss Miles”. Moving on, Miles goes to check on Tulley, who is the getaway driver. He walks over to the edge of the roof and calls in on the walkie-talkie. Tulley is smoking a cigarette in the car and is ready, but Miles calls him out for smoking. Tulley denies it, but Miles knows he’s lying and reminds him how his mom wouldn’t be happy to know what he’s doing. So, Tulley goes to flick the cigarette out of the window. However, it’s closed, so the cigarette bounces back into the car and he freaks out. Miles goes back over to Eddie, as they are about to enter through where the elevator is. Eddie spits down it the elevator shaft and says it’s good luck. It’s something he does every time they go on a heist, but Miles finds it disgusting and so do I. Miles and Eddie swing down the elevator shaft and enter the building with some high-tech equipment. At the same time, Deacon shoots a grappling hook gun of sorts to the roof of another building. He knocks out a main camera for Miles and Eddie and lets them know. As Miles uses some decoder equipment, Deacon tells him there is a guard 20 feet from where he’s standing. Just as the guard gets close, Miles’s machine gets the rest of the combination and he’s able to sneak into this main office area with Eddie. This is where the vault is. The door locks behind them, and the guard checks the door. He uses a flashlight to look into the room since the door is locked and walks back. Once Deacon relays to them that the guard left, they get out from their hiding spots on the chairs by the desk and go over to the vault.

Miles gives Eddie the equipment he needs but says that this vault is the toughest in the world, a Brigger 3300. Miles stresses that they have to see if the door to the vault is unlocked before they go further. Eddie is confused by this until Miles jokes that he was just messing around. Meanwhile, a nervous, chain-smoking Tulley is waiting in the car, and there are about thirty cigarettes on the ground outside of the car door. Two cops pull up right behind him where he’s parked.

Back inside, Miles is able to drill a hole into the vault, and Eddie hands him these special glasses connected to a wire that he puts in the hole. It allows for him to see from the wire, which in turn lets him see what’s inside the vault. Eddie’s part is done, so he goes back to the roof. Miles uses the wire to burn the locking mechanism, and it unlocks the vault. On the roof, Deacon helps Eddie out of the elevator shaft, and he asks where the jewel is. Eddie tells him that Miles should be right behind him with it. Deacon pulls out his gun, pointing it at Eddie. He refuses to split the $17 million four ways. He wants it all. He shoots Eddie, and Eddie falls off the roof onto the cop car below. This startles Tulley who drives off. At the same time, Miles just got into the vault and grabs the blue diamond worth $17 million. He calls to Deacon to say he’s got it, and Deacon tells him to hurry because there’s a lot of activity outside. Miles gets out of the vault, and a guard sees him from the hallway. Miles puts a lighter up to an alarm, and a fire extinguishing type of gas comes down from the ceiling when the guard enters the room. Miles puts on a gas mask and tackles the guard with a table, escaping. He opens the elevator shaft and since the elevator is already coming up, Miles grabs onto to the wire and it rockets him to the roof just as the other guard started shooting at him. SWAT busts into the building and force the guard down at gunpoint because they don’t know what’s going on. Deacon helps Miles out of the elevator shaft and Miles asks where Eddie is at. Deacon tells him that he already went across to the other building. He wants the diamond though and pulls a gun at Miles. Realizing what’s happening, they get into a scuffle while a helicopter above them shines a light on the two. Deacon breaks free with a bag that Miles had and rides the zipline to the other building to make his escape. Cops are on the roof and Miles goes over to the zipline. On the other side, Deacon looks through the bag and the diamond isn’t there, meaning Miles still has it.

Just then, Miles ziplines across but is stuck midway with Deacon waiting for him on the other side, pointing a gun at him. Miles uses an electric saw that he has on him, cuts the zipline, and swings directly into the building but on the floor below Deacon. Deacon goes down to the other floor after seeing Miles there, seemingly knocked out. However, once he gets there, Miles is gone. Deacon is flipping out but is forced to run because the cops have shown up to this building. Miles hides in an air vent as the cops search the place. He tries to crawl his way through more of the air vent and falls hard down one part of it. While he sits there, he decides to duct tape the diamond to the inside of the vent. In the event that he gets caught, he at least knows where it’s at and can get it later. Next, Miles climbs out of the vent and falls to the ground. Immediately, a police dog is there and barks to give up his position. He tries to act like he’s a carpenter working late, but the cops ignore him and arrest him. As he’s being taken away, he takes a mental note looking at the air vent (“A C Vent 3rd Floor, North Wing”). While being taken to the police car, he sees Eddie lying dead on one of the parked cars. Then, he takes a note of the street he’s on, as they are on the corner of Grand Ave. and 5th Street.

Two years later, Miles gets out of prison. He messes with the guard a little bit while signing out and accuses him of stealing his other shoelace since one of them are gone when he’s given his shoes back. After talking about how he’s going to see his girlfriend Janeice (Tamala Jones), he guesses that the guard has his other shoelace to floss his ass before leaving. Once he’s released and he’s done shouting to the heavens how he’s free, he taxies over to Janeice’s place with flowers. Her cousin Shawna (Spencer) answers the door, and Miles is shocked because he mistakes her for Janeice and asks, “Did you eat the whole time I was in there?”. He can’t believe it but tries to adjust and says he can get over it until Shawna calls for Janeice. This is where Miles realizes that it’s her cousin and apologizes. Janeice comes over to the door, and it’s all smiles until Janeice notes how he should’ve thought about what he was doing before he started robbing people. She slams the door in his face while Miles argues that he never robbed her. He tries to plead his case from outside, but Janeice opens the window to point out how it should have been a sign that she didn’t come see him for the two years he was in prison. Miles just thought it was because she couldn’t stand to see her man like that. Janeice can’t believe what she’s hearing, reminding him how he said he was a banker. He corrects her and says, “Bank robber” and passes it off as a stutter he has. Janeice isn’t buying it and saw their whole relationship as one big lie. He tries to say that he can change, but she doesn’t want to hear it and shuts the window. Following this, Miles takes a bus to the corner of Grand Ave. and 5th Street. Unfortunately, he finds out that the building where he placed the diamond is now a new LAPD location. Flipping out but having no alternative, Miles heads inside. He sees the cameras, a higher-up official using a key card to get into the back area, and a delivery man being let in by the front desk guy. With this, he comes up with a new plan. He comes back in disguise as a cartoonish pizza delivery man with a full body sweatsuit and obnoxious teeth.

He goes over to the directory and sees how the third floor is for robbery and homicide. Next, he goes to the front desk and tells the cop that he has a pizza delivery specifically for robbery and homicide, but the cop doesn’t see it on the log-in sheet. Acting like he’s doing Miles a favor, he tells Miles to leave the pizzas with him. Miles argues that the last time he did that, the pizza disappeared. The cop counters that the only people who get through are cops or people getting arrested, and he’s neither. At the same time, Det. Carlson (Wilson) is trying to use his key card, so the cop tells Carlson to flip it around. Carlson apologizes because he just got it and is getting used to it. Improvising, Miles goes over to Carlson and tells him that the guys in homicide ordered the pizzas about an hour ago and he doesn’t want to leave them with the fat cop. He wants to give them to Carlson, but Carlson says he can’t because he’s on duty. Miles insists and shoves them onto Carlson. He runs out of there and reveals that he did this to steal Carlson’s key card. Next, Miles, now back in his regular clothes, meets with “Uncle Lou” (Richard C. Sarafian), a forger who owns a pizzeria. After letting him in on the situation, he asks if Lou can switch the pictures on the key card. Lou thinks it will be a bit suspicious for a pizza man to come back to the station with security clearance, but Miles explains his idea. He’s going in as a cop, a new transfer. That’s why he needs a new I.D. and a new file for detective because that’s the floor where the diamond is. Lou agrees to do it but notes how it will be expensive. Miles thought they were like family, but Lou responds that if they were family, Miles would want it for free, which he laughs off. That night, Miles gets a motel room and watches COPS nonstop to try and get into character, practicing cop-like movements and phrases while watching the show. At the same time, Lou goes through with making a badge and everything else Miles needs. The next day, Miles is with Lou and asks him if he’s heard anything about Deacon. The last Lou heard is that he was “pulling rip jobs in Carson”.

He did warn Miles about Deacon, and Miles confirms this. Lou does note that Deacon is going to know that he got out of prison and to watch out for him. Moving on, Lou gives Miles his detective file but says that it’s purely cosmetic and won’t check out. Miles isn’t worried. He doesn’t think he will be in there for more than an hour.

Wearing a clean suit, Miles heads over to the police station with his LAPD duffel bag, and one of the police dog’s barks at him. Miles tells the dog that he’s a detective while using his key card to open the door. The cop with the dog apologizes and comments how the dog has never done that. Miles just passes it off as being the pastrami’s fault before calling the dog a bitch. Miles goes to take the elevator but is shocked to see it full of cops. He’s not sure what to do for a moment until the one cop asks if he’s entering, so he does. Miles is noticeably anxious in the small ride to the third floor and tries to mimic the cop next to him to seem more cop-like, though the cop can see Miles staring at him and is weirded out by the interaction until Miles exits. As Miles walks onto his floor, Carlson is questioning an arrested suspect and he’s complaining about how tight the cuffs are. He even tries to get his lawyer Melissa Green’s (Nicole Ari Parker) attention to loosen them. As this is happening, Miles goes to the bathroom in an attempt to get to the air vent but sees a cop in there smoking near it. Since he can’t do anything until the bathroom is clear, he heads right back out the door. As Green tells Carlson to loosen the cuffs a bit and Carlson smiles and concedes, Miles opens the door to the women’s bathroom. It’s empty, so Miles goes to the stall and tries to open the vent. As soon as Carlson takes the cuffs off, the man pushes Carlson to the ground and runs out the door. Looking for an escape route, he heads straight into the women’s bathroom. Miles sees the man enter and hides in the stall. He flushes the toilet, so the man turns to his stall. Then, Miles kicks the door open and smacks the man to the ground. Carlson is in the hallway and hears the commotion, so he heads in, with all the other cops following. As the man is taken away and Miles is done talking shit to the guy, one cop asks why the vent is open, so Miles says he caught the guy trying to escape through the ventilation system.

Of course, this prompts the cop to ask who Miles is, so he says his name is “Malone” and he’s a new transfer, showing off his badge. Everyone’s a little confused, but they are interrupted by a female cop who actually wants to use the bathroom. They all head out as a result.

Miles is forced to walk with Lt. Rizzo (Graham Beckel) who wants his paperwork. Miles hands him his file, as Rizzo talks about how they have put in a request for a new detective for 8 months. Rizzo is impressed reading off his fake file and how Miles apparently has 16 citations for burglary, how he has the mayor’s commendation, and how he worked out of West Covina. Rizzo stops by his office and questions if he knows Miles from somewhere. Eyeing his bowling trophies from his office, Miles asks if he’s a part of a bowling league. Rizzo cracks a smile, completely falling for it and realizing that he recognizes him as a bowler he may have crossed paths with. Changing the subject, Rizzo says they could use a guy in Burglary, so he calls Carlson over. Miles starts freaking out because he thought he was going to be assigned to a desk, as he was going to use this spot in the office to get to the diamond. However, Rizzo says he belongs on the street. In addition, Carlson needs a partner with experience. He lets Miles know that Carlson just got promoted. Once Carlson comes over to them, Rizzo tells him to show Miles around and to let him do all the handcuffing. Rizzo goes into his office to review Miles’s file, and Carlson starts showing Miles around the office and where everything is at. Miles isn’t really listening and is just looking at the air vent to find a different route to get to the diamond, but they are both interrupted by Rizzo who tells Carlson to show him the rest later. They have a burglary call they have to go on right away. Miles tries to plead his case on how he needs to work on some stuff inside first before he goes out on the field, but Carlson leads him out because he needs backup. Getting to the parking lot, Carlson asks how long he’s been in Burglary. Miles just responds vaguely how it’s been his whole life. Carlson mentions how incredible it is that he’s got 16 citations. Miles responds how this is what happens when “Uncle Lou writes your file”. Carlson doesn’t know what he’s talking about, so he just goes with it.

When they get to the car, Miles opens the backseat door because he’s used to being a prisoner, so a confused Carlson lets him know he can come to the front.

They ride out, and Carlson talks about how he just made detective and how he worked Traffic for three years. Despite having enough time to get through the light, he slows down on yellow and says that he doesn’t want to have an accident like some of the one’s he’s seen in his time. Miles notes his extreme caution but also has to get Carlson’s attention when the light turns green. Next, Carlson asks how many times he took the test to become detective. Miles lies and says that he aced it on the first try. Carlson admits it took him five tries. He did well on the written part, but his performance reviews weren’t good. Miles jokingly asks how many times it took for him to get his driver’s license because of how slow he’s driving. After Carlson apologizes and compliments Miles’s suit, Miles turns on some music and Carlson vibes to it. Eventually, the two get to a mechanic place and the owner Frank (Frank Medrano) tells Carlson how he was robbed of 3 dozen rims, $5,000 worth. They didn’t take anything else. The alarm went off, but it took the cops two hours to get there. Frank deduces that the rims are probably already in Tijuana by now. He leads Carlson over to where they broke in through the window. Miles tells Carlson this is a waste of time and that the real point of entry was above them in the skylight. He says aloud that’s how he would’ve done it before explaining how this is how he would have done it if he were a thief. He knows that if they went in through the skylight, they could have cut the alarm from the inside. This would allow them to take their time because the rims are heavy. Miles asks how long it would take to carry out three dozen of those rims and load them into a truck. Carlson agrees with Miles in that it would take a long time. Frank argues they probably had 3 or 4 guys with them, but Miles tells him to knock it off. He tells him his five grand is worth less than two grand on the street. Knowing this, they aren’t going to have a big crew because their split of the profit wouldn’t be much, especially after they rent a truck. To do that, you need a credit card and a driver’s license unless you have your own truck.

As he says this, he sees Frank’s work truck sitting there. Miles leads Carlson to the truck, but Carlson says they need a warrant to search it. Miles doesn’t care and says they don’t even need a key, using something he has on him to unlock the padlock. He opens the truck and finds all the rims. Frank acts shocked. Carlson tries to write a report on the spot and tells Frank how serious reporting a false crime is, but Miles stops him.

Miles takes Frank aside and gives him a stern warning, promising to kick his ass if he ever attempts something like this again. He walks away with Carlson, and Carlson doesn’t like this because they should have arrested Frank. However, Miles says that Frank owes them one now. Carlson realizes he’s saying they need to let the little fish go, so they can catch the big fish later. Because he understands the point, he gets excited over the learning experience. Changing the subject, Miles asks to drive because he knows a shortcut, so Carlson lets him have the keys. This leads to Miles driving like a madman all over LA, speeding through traffic and using the intercom to yell at vehicles to get out of the way. He comments how he can “get used to this”, prompting Carlson to ask what he means by this. Miles lies and says he’s referring to driving because his last partner did all the driving. Carlson asks who is partner was, but Miles says he doesn’t want to talk about it. He goes on about being deep and there’s some places he just doesn’t want to talk about. Carlson argues they should communicate because their partnership is like a marriage, but Miles assures him this is not the case and it’s more like a one-night stand. They are just here to fight crime. That’s it. Carlson asks if he’s married or has a girlfriend, so Miles admits he doesn’t. In regards to the girlfriend, he says “not anymore” because “work got in the way”, which is technically true. Miles drives until Carlson points out how someone took out a fire hydrant, so he stops. Miles wants to leave because he has a headache, but Carlson reminds him they are on duty. As Carlson goes to handle the fire hydrant situation, Miles walks over to the convenience store to buy some aspirin. Getting inside, the clerk points him in the aisle to go to. As he looks, a hooded man tries to hold up the cashier with a gun. However, the cashier pulls out his gun and shoots back at the man. Carlson hears the shooting and runs over to the car to call it in. They have a shootout in the store while Miles sits on the ground eating chips, trying to wait it out.

Once Carlson gets close to the door of the store to ask Miles if he’s okay, the man shoots the glass to scare him off. Finally, Miles points a gun to the robber’s head to force him to put the gun down. When he’s talking, the robber takes his hood off. It’s Tulley who realizes it’s Miles, and Miles is in shock.

The cashier reloads and starts shooting at Tulley, so the two get down and start talking between the shelves. At the same time, Carlson begins to make his move to enter the store and makes his presence known. Trying to help Tulley, Miles gestures for him to go out the back exit while he still acts like a cop and shouts different directions to Carlson. It confuses Tulley at first because he thinks Miles is talking to him, but Miles tells him to go. Just then, Carlson gets in the aisle and points his gun at Tulley. The cashier fires his gun near all of them though, and it’s enough of a distraction for Tulley to escape. Tulley runs into the alley but can’t get to the street because backup just showed up. He goes the other way, but it’s a dead end, so he hides behind a dumpster. Miles and Carlson follow him out and have their guns drawn. Tulley shoots at Carlson, so they hide. Det. Hardcastle (Forsythe) shows up as their backup, and Carlson lets him know what’s going on. Hardcastle tells the other cop to get SWAT, and he tells Carlson and Miles how the sharpshooters can take Tulley out from the roof, though Miles says they don’t need all of that. Tulley shouts out Miles and questions what he’s doing there, confusing Carlson and Hardcastle. Miles just tells the two that Tulley is high and talking crazy. Improvising, Miles gives Carlson his gun and takes off his suit jacket. He holds his hands up and walks over to Tulley, adding that he doesn’t want anyone to get hurt. Finally, Tulley comes out from his spot, and he meets Miles in the middle of the alley. All the cops are watching, but they aren’t in earshot of their conversation, allowing Miles to flip out on Tulley for not going straight for the cash drawer instead of the safe like he told him how to. Carlson and Hardcastle see that Miles is in the way, so they can’t get a clean shot. Miles continues and gets on Tulley for going after mom-and-pop stores when he should be using his driving skills for something bigger.

Tulley doesn’t understand why they are whispering and freaks out about needing money, pointing his guns at the cops behind him before Miles stops him. He tells Tulley he’s working on something, and Tulley is blowing it for him, so Tulley apologizes. Miles is cool with it, but he lets him know that he has to give up the gun and allow him to arrest him. Tulley refuses, so Miles offers him $10k to go along with it. Tulley wants $50k, but Miles counters with $20k and one night in jail. It’s the best he can do. Tulley agrees to the terms, but he wants to keep his gun, prompting Miles to laugh as he tells him that he can’t arrest him without taking the gun. Tulley is annoyed because he just got it and it’s hard to find, but Miles is insistent. Tulley tries to hand it over, but Miles stops him because this would look unrealistic. Tulley understands, so Miles knocks the gun out of his hand and attacks him to make it look like he apprehended him. As he’s putting the cuffs on Tulley, he reminds Tulley to act like he doesn’t know him. Back at the station, Carlson is excitingly telling the other cops about how Miles pulled off this incredible arrest, and Miles is laughing and talking with Hardcastle about the whole thing. Rizzo interrupts and calls Miles into his office. Privately in Rizzo’s office, he asks why he’s never heard of Miles, so he explains how he was undercover. Rizzo brings up how they need someone to head up Burglary and asks if this is the real reason he’s here. Miles just goes along with it, so Rizzo talks about how the division has been a problem since they lost their lead detective last year. Usually, they promote from within the ranks, but he thinks these guys need someone new. With this, Rizzo offers the job of the new lead detective of the burglary division. Technically, there’s a 30-day qualifying period before he can make it official, but he doesn’t think it will be a problem with his record. Not sure what to say, Miles accepts the job. They exit the office and Rizzo sees all the cops trying to listen in on their conversation through the door.

Rizzo introduces Miles as the new lead detective of Burglary and gives Miles’s files to Carlson to process. Miles tells Carlson he has some stuff to do, and he takes the file from Carlson, adding that he knows what to do with it. Right after, he tosses the file in the garbage and goes into the women’s bathroom to crawl through the air vent. He crawls through it and stops to see Captain Pinelli (Carmen Argenziano) through one of the vents just as Pinelli enters his office. Privately, he puts itching ointment on his balls. Disgusted, Miles continues crawling, finding the spot where he left the diamond. Sadly, the duct tape is torn off and the diamond is missing.

“Shit!”

Now what?

My Thoughts:

The late 1990s and early 2000s were home to a lot of standard action-comedy movies that didn’t necessarily change the genre but were all a lot of fun. It was a simpler time, back when a cool star was attached to a project and could light up the screen with just a fun premise to go off of and a great supporting cast to compliment the star’s talents. It’s a period in film we look back on fondly, a time when superstars like Martin Lawrence reigned supreme. Elevating a production by just being involved, Lawrence’s abilities as a comic actor aren’t given nearly enough credit as they deserve. During his peak, Martin Lawrence could carry a movie on an Eddie Murphy caliber. Specifically in the action and action-comedy subgenres, I would argue that Lawrence is better and more believable than Murphy was, with the only notable exception being the Beverly Hills Cop franchise. In Blue Streak, Lawrence emulates a bit of the tone and energy of Beverly Hills Cop, Bad Boys, and later with National Security, and he’s just as likable as ever and comical as ever. His ability to be his usual, animated, funny self in situations where it’s needed but also show off tinges of action hero-like abilities is such an underrated part of the actor’s game when he was in his prime. It’s probably because Lawrence’s real-life background in boxing before he got into comedy was no joke. Again, Blue Streak wasn’t made to set the world on fire, but it’s a consistently amusing, energetic vehicle to showcase its star and how well he performs in the most random of circumstances.

Of course, this is directly related to the high concept screenplay inspired by 1965 British comedy film The Big Job. It’s an idea intriguing enough to make the head turn for what could be a regular action comedy, arguably the easiest genre to write for if you have a good enough star.

To give us a background on main character Miles Logan, the opening sequence is showing his background as a jewel thief on a serious caper. Miles is well versed in this world, but he still has the Martin Lawrence flare of fun-loving and messing around throughout the job as the leader of his group. Right from the beginning, he wins the audience over. His skills are noted through action, but it’s moments like him telling the serious Deacon how they run a loose crew around here as he smiles at him that make the viewer enjoy the personality of someone who is technically a big-time criminal. In the middle of the most heated moment of the job with Eddie, he jokes with him how they always need to check if the vault was left unlocked first before laughing and telling him he was just messing around. For Miles, he’s done this so often that he can joke around like this to relieve tension but also because he’s that confident in what he’s doing. He’s never reckless for the sake of comedic purposes, which is appreciated. Obviously, the notable exception to this is the pizza deliveryman sequence where Miles puts on the disguise of this outlandish pizza delivery guy who’s so obnoxious that it’s hard to believe that the cops wouldn’t keep an extra eye on such a character, but a little bit of Martin bleeding into the story with his recurring Jerome-like character isn’t necessarily a dealbreaker. If anything, it just makes Blue Streak into a certified “Martin Lawrence movie”, satisfying his fans who love to see Lawrence have this type of fun on screen. Regardless, Miles Logan is able to maintain this endearing personality type while revving up the action convincingly. When things go haywire, he transitions the comic energy into high-paced action, taking out the guard and flying to the top of the elevator shaft only to find that Deacon has turned on him, the least surprising part of the movie because as soon as we see Peter Greene, we know he’s going to be the antagonist at some point.

Still, there’s a toughness that Lawrence displays in Blue Streak and in other action comedies where he can be the funniest person in the room but also believably whoop somebody’s ass or hilariously threaten them with one of his funny quips. In comparison, this is something Eddie Murphy struggles with in Metro, as him finding the balance took longer than expected for someone who made the iconic Beverly Hills Cop, which only further aids the argument that his role as Axel Foley may have been the exception. Though Lawrence’s movies never made the money Murphy did, they were all consistent in quality and the actor was just more convincing in shootouts, fights, and general action sequences. There’s a naturalness to Lawrence’s physicality, like when Rizzo introduces Miles to the rest of the cops in the briefing room and Penelli asks Miles to tell everyone a little bit about his plans to head up Burglary. Miles comments “I plan to fight crime” while throwing crazy combinations and a kick before adding, “You know. Shit like that”. It’s classic Martin Lawrence physical humor that only he pulls off so well.

Blue Streak is a comedy of accidental happenings, misunderstandings, and course corrections, with Miles trying to navigate and improvise his way through everything to funny results. The pacing of it all is great, and Lawrence shines at every turn as he finds himself in a situation where he has to act like this highly commended detective who’s only real background in the matter is watching COPS and being arrested himself. To the cops he’s able to fool, Miles is this intelligent detective who can get into a criminal’s mind, but the reality of the situation is that Miles does this so well because he is able to utilize his career criminal background to solve cases. It may seem far-fetched for some, but the movie’s events take place only over a few days or so. Someone as smooth, likeable, and confident as Miles being put into this scenario, and finding ways to keep things going before he can get back to his goal of finding the diamond, is actually a believable plot within the timeframe of the narrative. Considering how active the LAPD is and how scatterbrained the paperwork-heavy cops probably are, the details of Miles’s background not being made a priority and not being figured out right away while Miles acts like a new hire and distracts everyone by pulling off all these crazy stunts to gain equity with the crew would more than likely be a situation of “I’ll get to it later” by his co-workers. With how much success he sees in his few days there, it just made him look more legitimate, so why would they question if he’s a real cop or not? They will process his files when they get around to it! Plus, Miles looks the part. Just as he pulls off the jewel thief gear and the pizza delivery man cartoon character, he flips the script when he walks in with that suit and acts like the newly transferred detective. When you try and put yourself into the shoes of the other busy cops, it doesn’t take long to see why they don’t initially suspect anything, with Miles being partnered with the novice detective in Carlson adding to the luck that allows Miles to get away with some of his “detective” behavior that a veteran would likely sniff out if they spent enough time with him.

Played by underrated comic actor Luke Wilson, Carlson makes it known that he failed the detective test five times before passing, is extremely careful, and also not great at the job. Since he’s still learning, he doesn’t mind taking a backseat because he knows his role in the department. He sees this new hotshot in Miles with 16 citations and a brand new suit walk in, and Rizzo tells him how good Miles is, so he has no reason to believe otherwise. He just takes every word Miles says as a learning experience, and it really works due to the amusing Wilson and his performance as the “excitable rookie” character who’s completely oblivious to Miles’s true self. They have solid chemistry together, as does Lawrence with the scene-stealing Dave Chappelle (“This guy Logan owes me $50,000. If I don’t get it soon, I’M TALKING!”). In his younger years, Chappelle’s high-pitched rantings never failed to garner a laugh, and he’s responsible for all the laughs of the movie outside of Lawrence (“Who’s Logan and what do u know about him” – “All I can tell you sir is that he’s gay, gay, gay!”). Even when he’s barely heard and being moved off camera by attorney Melissa Green, he gets in some throwaway jokes and still gets some chuckles as he mentions the recurring joke about the cops taking his shoelace and “then he said I was ugly, and I couldn’t read good” while feigning pain and agony. If anything, the script should have been reworked to include Chappelle more once he was cast because he was too funny to not have a bigger role in the story. Could you imagine if they took it in a different direction by the midpoint where Tulley saw what Miles was doing and decided he wanted to play cop too to get the diamond? Then, they both would have to play off their fake credentials to the other cops while bickering with each other once Tulley tries to pull off the same scam but doing so less effectively because of how bad the character is under pressure?

Of course, we’re just spit balling here because this would have changed the movie entirely, but the point stands that Blue Streak benefitted highly from Chappelle’s performance as Tulley and could have been even better if he was given the co-lead. Him and Lawrence are magic onscreen playing off each other. Why no one thought to team the two superstar comedians up in future productions is an absolute shame. A perfect example other than the interrogation scene is when heroin kingpin Jean LaFleur has Miles, Tulley, Benny, and Deacon at gunpoint and questions who they are to Benny, so Miles talks himself up as the new hire and tries to act like Tulley is some psychopath not to be messed with. It might be the funniest scene in the movie, as Miles lies about a move Tulley does where he ripped out someone’s guts from their ass and their eyes fell out, subsequently telling Tulley to do the move (“I’m bad. Nah, I’m bad baby. I’ll rip your lips off and kiss my ass with them shits”). You can’t watch this scene and tell me these guys wouldn’t have created a Rush Hour styled classic with their undeniable chemistry. Besides this, a surprising but commendable choice of Blue Streak is its avoidance of a suspected romantic angle in the plot, which would usually be a standard for a movie like this. Though it may have strengthened certain aspects from a character development standpoint, it wasn’t needed. If anything, it may have slowed the movie down and the frantic, humorous happenings Miles finds himself in. Trying to work in a love interest would have affected the comedy and arguably wouldn’t have fit the events of the story considering the short timespan they happen in. They almost tease the audience with the introduction of Melissa Green and how Carlson is easily swooned by her, and Miles has some interactions with her since she’s Benny’s lawyer and Tulley’s, but it never goes further than that. Blue Streak is purely Martin Lawrence fucking around in a police department while trying to locate a $17 million blue diamond he stashed there and it’s presentation is exactly what we want as fans of the actor.

I actually prefer the direction they went in, and it’s establishing why there wasn’t going to be a love interest situation due to Miles’s girlfriend breaking up with him early in the movie was a chuckle-worthy scene coming out of prison. Again, with this genre and this time period, you don’t see this a lot, so this pivot was appreciated. More importantly, it was just the correct decision because it just wouldn’t have fit the direction the main character was going in.

Miles’s scrambling and improvising on the spot never gets old. Him being asked about what he thinks about the “P-31”, him having no clue what the other cops are talking about but turning the question back on them, as if he wants to connect with his new co-workers, was a very funny scene and a great way to show how good Miles is at thinking on the spot. Carlson cheesing it up and telling everyone proudly “That’s my partner” before Miles switches it to the “P-40” since all the cops seem to like that instead was just gold, especially with Rizzo eating it up and seeing Miles as just the man they need to shake up the place. The ongoing joke of all the cops being impressed with Miles is a recurring gag that fuels the hijinks of the movie, like Hardcastle telling Carlson how Miles isn’t with IA but rather undercover with the FBI as it’s how he makes sense of Miles knowing about the drug bust (“He knew about the heroin thing from the start. FBI planted him here thinking he’d get first jump on the burglary call. Afraid we’d screw it up, pencil dicks”). Then, the two marvel at Mile’s interrogation tactics, with Hardcastle commenting how you don’t learn stuff like that at the academy and Carlson suggesting he’s a Navy SEAL. It’s great, as was Rizzo telling Gray confidently that the unarmed and outnumbers Miles has this covered, despite Miles being in legitimate danger in the warehouse unbeknownst to the cops (“Trust me. You should see Malone’s resume. This is like a walk in the park for him”). The creativity of the narrative is seen in each succeeding scene where Miles keeps on trying to go back to his goal of securing the diamond and the screenwriters find new ways to stop him in his tracks like when he gets into an office and tries to open the vent again. Carlson walks in and asks, “What is it with you and the heating ducts, sir?”, a perfect encapsulation of the ridiculous premise of the movie. When you’re watching it, you find yourself questioning how Miles will lie his way out of this too, especially after Carlson notes how he ran his badge number and there’s no file that exists on “Malone”.

In Miles fashion, he leads Carlson into the stairwell and comes up with this elaborate fabrication about how he’s with Internal Affairs and convinces Carlson they need to work together to bring down corruption in the department. For some reason, his ability to convince the naive Carlson here is plausible and comical as everything else. All of it just works. An even better example is when it really looks like Miles is backed into a wall in the final minutes of the film and he tells the group he’s actually a Federale, commenting how he’s doing it for his country and “The red, the white….and the green” because he forgot the last color until he looked back at the Mexican flag. It was just enough for things to finally unravel realistically, as he was pushing just a tad too far. Without revealing too much though, I adored the visual of the painted lines between borders and how it signified the crossroads the characters find themselves in. It was such a great way to end things on a happy note when the fallout could have easily been cataclysmic and dead serious.

The whole sequence at the airport when they’re investigating a stolen museum exhibit from a cargo hold was problematic, however. Though it again is placed there to stop Miles from reaching the evidence room where the diamond fell into due to the hot water pipes bursting back in the day that flooded all the vents, why does Rizzo need Miles on this case specifically? To begin with, Rizzo already says that the FBI and customs are already on the case, so why would he need to be there or anyone from LAPD for that matter? Miles can’t believe this is even his problem, and us as the audience wonder the same. Then, when he gets to the crime scene, he’s suddenly pissed off that Diaz wasn’t allowed in, and he tries to act like a hotshot and wants to take the case over from Agent Gray. Why? He didn’t even want to be involved before. The cops not being allowed in is basically a free ticket for Miles to get back to the station. Why does he suddenly feel the need to take over? It could be to try to get the audience to believe in Miles’s growing relationship with his coworkers and feeling the need to defend them, but there isn’t a single thing that happens previously in the movie to make this seem like a trait Miles has, which is why him getting his ego hurt over this fake job and these people he doesn’t plan on seeing ever again doesn’t make sense. He’s given another out by Gray, who tells Miles that he’s out of his jurisdiction and in over his head, which should have given Miles the greenlight to get back to his diamond at the station. However, he’s just mad at what Gray was insinuating. In the car, he talks angrily about how he was referred to as an “officer” rather than a detective even though he’s neither. Naturally, the whole scene is used for Hardcastle and Carlson to gain more respect for Miles and to lead to the drug bust after Miles correctly guesses the FBI was looking for drugs as it was a smuggling operation (“… bonded trucks can get into bonded warehouses”), but there just needed to be something shown in the first act to establish to the audience that Miles may go this far if his ego is messed with.

Miles believing in his own lies after the airport scene, talking out loud about how he’s lead detective and has 16 citations and wanting to show up Gray, didn’t fit the characterization of who the viewer knows Miles to be and all of his motivations.

The action is solid. Besides the lively opening sequence, Miles chasing Benny on foot through the neighborhoods after they bust the truck in traffic was great, the cavalcade of chaos in the warehouse after Tulley ruins everything by showing up for his cut (“Man, why are you selling this shit when you got that big diamond in your hand?”) and Deacon reenters the picture to snatch the diamond from Miles, and the inevitable shootout that leads to the chase between Miles and Deacon through the Mexican border was a thrilling climax. Doing a Mexican standoff in Mexico was cool, and Miles infiltrating the desperate mind of Deacon in the moment with his pleas for the diamond was enjoyable (“I know you don’t want to go to jail in Mexico. Don’t nobody want to go to jail in Mexico. They put all kinds of burritos in your ass”). I will admit that the final gunshot from Miles was a just a tad over-the-top for the tone of the movie, but they made things up with the ending as a whole. Plus, the humor was the real highlight anyway. Along with Miles hugging Pinelli to avoid shaking his disgusting hand, Miles’s idea for the heroin to stay in-house by suggesting a sting but it backfiring was hilarious (“I’m just suggesting some shit ya’ll can do”), and his messing with the FBI guys afterwards when he’s taken the position of authority on the LaFleur sting was just as amusing, with him barking at the audio guy when they want to test his wire and how Gray tells him that he has to act like a criminal who hates law enforcement, so Miles fucks with him by suggesting all the phrases he can say by directing them straight to Gray, getting a laugh out of Hardcastle as he says it. Furthermore, Green telling Miles to not lay a finger on Benny, and Miles immediately slamming his head on the steering wheel was laugh-out-loud funny. That may have been my favorite moment of the movie.

We also can’t help but appreciate Miles’s catchphrase asking, “It’s like that?” when he’s being disrespected and the response from the character opposite of him saying firmly, “It’s like that”. It’s something you want to make part of your everyday vocabulary because of how memorable it is.

“BELIEVE THAT!”

Blue Streak is an energetic action comedy and a great showcase for its star. It doesn’t set out to do anything unexpected or thought-provoking, but it’s a funny watch that will maintain the viewer’s attention and entertain consistently through its runtime, despite arguable logistical hangups. An enjoyable buddy cop movie that weaves in and out of Los Angeles, Martin Lawrence rambles and finds himself in comical, sticky, and high-pressure situations left and right. Nevertheless, watching him attempt to maneuver out of them or potentially fall in deeper with his bed of lies is a breezy and pleasurable experience.