In National Security, Martin Lawrence is Earl Montgomery, a police
academy reject with comedic violent tendencies and the stereotypical
Black man’s Me-Against-The Man angst. After getting kicked out of
the LAPD academy because of some hilarious over-eagerness and rebellion,
Earl joins the National Security agency as a warehouse security
guard. Steve Zahn is Hank Rafferty, a moral by the book LAPD officer
who wants nothing more than to catch the bad guys who killed his
partner. After Earl gets Steve ousted from the force on a trumped
up racial profiling charge, the two are unwillingly thrown together
as security guards for National Security, chasing a dangerous smuggling
team led by a bleached Eric Roberts.
After Martin Lawrence’s recent string of floppy, slapstick silliness,
my expectations weren’t too high but I must admit the first twenty
minutes of the comedy/action pleasantly drew some chuckles after
a long hard day. Unfortunately the film-going experience went downhill
from there with the white man vs. black man jokes quickly growing
old and the plot weighed down with random shoot-outs and blowups.
I was really trying my best not to be a complete hater but using
the race card as the foundation for repetitive jokes was not really
my thing.
Steve Zahn Is actually very funny and great at not overplaying
his role, especially compared to Lawrence who got to be a bit overzealous
with the silly action factor. It was cool to see Bill Duke make
an appearance as a LAPD police captain and join in on the fun. Although
the whole production seems to be the same joke told a thousand different
ways, the film is good for a couple of hee-haws at the very least.
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