'The Bad Guys' Revisit: Crime Caper, More Charming and Clever Than Ever
Before the sequel hits theaters this week, we revisit the first film.
Now Streaming: First published in 2015, Aaron Blabey's Australian graphic novel The Bad Guys has spawned 19 further episodes over nine years. Intended for junior readers, Blabey's books have spent some 120 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list.
DreamWorks Animation purchased the film rights in 2017. Etan Coen, who co-wrote the live-action comedies Idiocracy (2006) and Tropic Thunder (2008) before co-writing the animated family films Escape From Madagascar 3: Back to Africa (2008), wrote the screenplay for The Bad Guys.
In the years between writing animated family films, Coen scripted Men in Black 3, then followed that by writing and directing the semi-crime comedy Get Hard (2015) , which starred Will Farrell, grossed more than $100 million worldwide, and yet is nearly entirely forgettable, as well as and Holmes and Watson (2018), a more assured mystery comedy that I found more enjoyable, yet it grossed just $40 million worldwide.
In adapting Aaron Blabey's book for the big screen, Coen created an effective framework, efficiently introducing the handful of criminals who make up the titular gang -- voiced by Sam Rockwell, Marc Maron, Awkwafina, Craig Robinson, and Anthony Ramos -- as well as several key supporting characters, voiced by Richard Ayoade, Zazie Beetz, Alex Borstein, and Lily Singh. His dialogue is efficient and sometimes witty.
Pierre Perifel made his directorial debut, after spending years at DreamWorks Animation working on a variety of films in a variety of capacities. On the audio commentary, available on the Blu-ray and DVD editions of the movie, and featuring multiple BTS talent, the point is made that the film is an homage to classic crime films, not a parody or a spoof. The director and other key talents isolated and identified specific moments and scenes that are tributes to special crime films, which makes for a fascinating listen, even as seems every sequence is somebody's "favorite"!
The plot follows the veteran, larcenous gang as they are caught after their latest elaborate heist, promise to "go good" and become The Good Guys so they can be absolved of guilt, freeing them to complete their interrupted heist again, and then must prove themselves and their true intentions when yet another criminal is framing them so he/she can get away with the crime.
The film was released in movie theaters in April 2022, during the global pandemic, and I did not see it until distributor Universal Studios sent out the Blu-ray/DVD package later in their as part of their FYC (For Your Consideration) awards campaign. I watched in and enjoyed to some degree, though I didn't feel like it rose too far above the average.
Watching it again, I appreciated the film's style more. It's in a much more illustrative style, as the filmmakers talk about on the commentary, and is meant to be more in the style of classic film noir, only in color and suitable for family audiences, so, overall, it's much brighter and takes place more often than not in outdoor locations.
Still, there are certain sequences that are animated with more contrast and more shadows than is normal. The film is set in and around modern-day Los Angeles, and, as a native Angeleno, I could better appreciate the animated version of real-life locations, especially during an opening chase sequence. (Yes, Los Angeles has hills! Many, many hills!) Watching it again also increased my appreciation for the extremely clever heist scenes, which, yes, are intentionally reminiscent of any number of live-action crime caper movies.
Perhaps because my expectations were lowered, I enjoyed The Bad Guys more on a second viewing than I did on my first, which makes me more eager to see The Bad Guys 2. [Now streaming on Peacock TV.]