'L.A.'s Finest' Review: A Fundamental Misunderstanding Of The 'Bad Boys' Franchise
L.A.'s Finest
Adapting film franchises into in-universe television series is no easy task. To do it requires a fundamental understanding of how the mothership property operates. An understanding of what makes it tick, and an ability to spin it in ways that don't violent that inherent understanding. Sadly, this idea of understanding is what's missing from the TV take on the Bad Boys film franchise, L.A.'s Finest.
Set in real-time following the events of Bad Boys II, L.A.'s Finest features the return of Sydney "Syd" Burnett, who's left her life at the DEA for a job in LAPD's homicide division. Sadly, though, remnants of her old life continue to plague her to this day.
The thing often overlooked about the Bad Boys franchise is its bucking of trend when it comes to the buddy cop genre. Instead of taking two diametrically opposed personalities and forcing them together, the franchise opens in 1995 with Mike and Marcus already best friends and competent partners with slightly varied life views. And it's in that varied view where the series finds its unique spin.
Mike is a playboy. Marcus is a family man.
In the respect of those personalities, L.A.'s Finest finds worthy allegories in Syd and her partner, Nancy McKenna. However, there is one final layer tacked on to the Bad Boys archetype that its television counterpart is sorely lacking.
Marcus doesn't want to be there.
Throughout the two films, Marcus constantly complains about the shenanigans Mike gets him into. This reaches a tipping point in the second film when the veteran detective puts in for a transfer away from Mike, despite the fact that it would mean walking away from his long-time best friend. This is the thing L.A.'s Finest is missing.
While they have different lives, there's nothing separating Syd from Nancy and Nancy from Syd. They both live for the action and couldn't be more willing to go head-on into a gunfight. Never, in either Bad Boys film, did Marcus want to do such things until he absolutely had to (see: Cuba). He was always willing to do it for the sake of his friend and duty as an officer of the law, but never did he actively seek to do so.
Without this constant thorn in Syd's side, there's nothing but forced drama coming from the series that feels tacked on after the fact, rather than built out of the internal struggle of a partnership that works despite itself. Without a reluctance on the part of Nancy to go cowboy with Syd at every turn, the show is just about two perfect super cops that have no faults. After a while, that gets really boring.
It's a let-down that L.A.'s Finest is what it is. The action's cool enough, and it's great to see the return of the Syd character… but not like this. There was a way to do this series right, but this wasn't it.
L.A.'s Finest premieres Monday, May 13th on Spectrum
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