Review: Bad Ass 2: Bad Asses

Danny Trejo is back as geriatric vigilante Frank Vega, who teams up with a crotchety local grocery store owner named Bernie (Danny Glover) to take on a drug kingpin who murdered a kid Frank saw as his own (Frank runs a boxing clinic for ‘po kids in this film). The metrosexual shithead young drug lord is the son of respected, well-connected Argentinian diplomat (Andrew Divoff, natch), who is the real head of the operation. Meanwhile, Frank has a little something going on with local resident Jacqueline Obradors, despite looking young enough to be his daughter. Jonathan Lipnicki (!) turns up briefly as a coke-snorting college meathead (!).

 

Yep, star Danny Trejo and writer-director Craig Moss (who made the first “Bad Ass” in 2012) have turned a true story into a cheesy action movie franchise, with this 2014 sequel and another one the following year hilariously called “Bad Asses on the Bayou”. Yep. That sounds like a classic, doesn’t it? I’ll have to look out for that one. This one’s actually a bit better than the first film (no slouch itself, mind you), but if the idea of 70 year-old Danny Trejo playing low-rent “Gran Torino” with Sgt. Murtagh (Danny Glover) by his side, doesn’t sound appetising to you…stay well away. As for me, I was sold the moment that I read it was a ‘Fanny Pack Production’. If you’ve ever wanted to see Danny Trejo wear light blue pants and a tie, playing hide and seek…this is your movie, folks.

 

The film knows exactly how stupid it is and doesn’t try to be anything other than what it is: A dumb, old-school action movie with two really old guys in the lead. Danny Trejo is by far the film’s best asset. He may be old and a lot shorter than movies tend to make him look, but I’m still not gonna fuck with the guy. Dude’s been to prison. I actually think he’s better in this one than in the first film, so it’s a shame he’s too old to really throw down in an action scene. However, the fights are an upgrade from the first film. There’s nothing pretty about the way Trejo fights here, the problem is that he just looks too old to be believably taking down younger and clearly much fitter guys. Kudos for making them total dumb arses so that they can be taken by surprise, but it still doesn’t look right. Otherwise, this is vintage 80s-early 90s urban justice flick stuff right here (albeit taking itself a lot less seriously than the first film- to its betterment), and if I met Trejo in real-life I’m quite sure I’d piss my pants nonetheless. In fact, can you make sure he never finds out I was talking about him? Thanks.

 

Joining Trejo this time out, perhaps as a replacement for the underrated Harrison Page in the first film is one Danny Glover. He and Trejo make for a terrific pair, and this may be Glover’s best work since stealing the show in “Switchback”. He’s been wildly erratic in recent years (ill-fitting dentures have done weird things to his voice at times, though that seems fixed now), but he’s clearly having fun in this. Made to look even older than he is, Glover’s fighting skills are thankfully off-camera, which is for the best really. He has a really funny story where he says the two things he was good at when he was younger were fighting and hockey. He had to fight because he was an African-American who wanted to play ice hockey! Glover can definitely act, one sometimes forgets but he shows it to an extent here. In fact, he and Trejo are better than the film. I don’t know what’s funnier, Danny Trejo with a fanny pack or Glover in a bright green and yellow Adidas tracksuit. He refuses to wear a fanny pack, though. Funny stuff. Speaking of funny (and frankly bizarre casting) “Jerry Maguire” kid Jonathan Lipnicki has grown up and in his first scene wears a star of David tattoo on his buff torso and snorts coke off a co-ed’s back, before getting roughed up by 70 year-old Danny Trejo! Glover, of course, is flirting with the underwear-clad co-ed during all of this. You’re definitely too old for that shit, Danny!

 

I’ll admit that the idea of Trejo and Glover sleeping in bunk beds is one cute joke too far (the idea of them travelling by bus is hilarious, however), whilst Trejo and Jacqueline Obradors are probably the most ridiculous screen couple in cinematic history (Moss seems to realise it, having them being interrupted on the verge of kissing, twice). Also, whilst we’re talking flaws, I kinda liked the friendly cop character from the first film, but his return appearance here serving exactly the same function is kind of annoying, through no fault of the actor. It just isn’t new or necessary. Also, the explosions look just as fake as in the first film, so I’m guessing funds weren’t plentiful.

 

On the plus side of things we get Andrew Divoff as an almost-age appropriate villain. Divoff is generally your straight-up, no-nonsense ethnic bad guy and he delivers the goods here as he did in 1991’s underrated “Toy Soldiers”. I bet Divoff’s a helluva nice guy in real-life, but he just has that pockmarked ‘evil drug lord’ look to him. It’s his lot in life as an actor. He’s certainly a more believable physical threat than Charles S. Dutton in the first film.

 

Danny Trejo must be loving life right now, he’s 70 years old and yet has been the star of two action movie franchises in the last ten years alone. Is this film complete nonsense? Of course, but it’s a pretty easy watch for the right audience. It’s fast-paced, funny, and the three main actors (Trejo, Glover, and Divoff) are ideal. Good, dumb fun. Really dumb. Cool Mariachi-meets-electric guitar music score, though I do miss the theme song from the first film. That thing was kick-arse.

 

Rating: B-