# Blue Streak (1999)

### reviewed by
Harvey S. Karten

    BLUE STREAK

     Reviewed by Harvey Karten
     Columbia Pictures
     Director:  Les Mayfield
     Writer:  Michael Berry & John Blumenthal and Steve
    Carpenter
     Cast: Martin Lawrence, Luke Wilson, Dave Chappelle,
    William Forsythe, Peter Greene, Nicole Ari Parker

I'd like a dollar for every time a colleague of mine in the high-school drug counseling enterprise told me, "This druggie kid asked me what I could possibly know about addiction: 'Did you ever smoke or take horse'?" Of course the teachers, whether they inhaled or not, had to be like candidate Bush and deny having taken any illegal substance during the past 25 years. Result: who'd trust these advisers? After all, it takes one to know one, and truth to tell, lots of people in the drug counseling business outside the school system are reformed addicts themselves. Their experience gives them credibility. Who, then, could better advise a police department about the criminal transport of drugs and about the art and science of burglary than one who is himself a thief? This is the motif of Martin Lawrence's latest vehicle, "Blue Streak," which deals with a career burglar, Miles Logan (Martin Lawrence), who must impersonate a police detective in order to find a huge diamond that he stole two years back.

The thirty-four-year old Lawrence, who treads on much the same territory of Eddie Murphy, made his movie rep in '95 in a movie with a similar hook, Michael Bay's "Bad Boys." An action film situated in Miami, "Bad Boys" dealt with two cops who are forced to switch roles after they're mistaken for each other during a drug-murder case. A blockbuster hit despite its being nothing more than a padded sitcom, this was a perfect role for the guy who starred in a Fox TV sitcom, "Martin," who was featured on HBO's Def Comedy Jam, and who gets roars from his target audience for his slam-dunk, in- your-face acting. Few others can draw chuckles and guffaws by exposing one side of his teeth, or opening one eye real large or landing an edgy smirk on the camera during his many close-ups. "Blue Streak," loaded with fast-paced, car- chase scenes, is no model of subtle or especially witty dialogue but Lawrence brings in the howls whenever he pulls off one of his many impersonations, his body language substituting for cosmopolitan colloquy.

Starting off with a surprisingly bloody (for a comedy) action sequence which sees one villainously selfish criminal kill a colleague at point-blank range to increase his own share, the movie focuses on Miles Logan as the head of a jewel heist gone awry. Miles pockets a valuable diamond and, on the verge of being arrested, tapes it to a wall in a heating duct. Emerging from jail two years later, he discovers to his horror that the duct is part of a police station in the LAPD. Needing access to the building which is under heavy security, Miles tries to enter disguised (much like Kit Ramsey's brother in "BOWFINGER") as a delivery man with protruding teeth, bad hair and thick glasses. Foiled, he is mistaken for a new transfer, a detective with an astonishing resume, and given dangerous assignments as head of the burglary division with wide latitude to shake up the department. Each task paves the way for Lawrence's nonpareil mugging as he fakes his way time and again despite his commission of small errors. When getting into a car with his new partner, for example, he automatically takes the back seat, moving forward only when told "you can ride up front." Behind the lectern, he is asked by his fellow cops whether he intends to keep the P31 weapon or switch to the P40. He cleverly turns the query around like an LAPD version of Dudley Moore (who once faked his way in a similar fashion as a man impersonating a doctor) by asking the crew, "What do you think?"

Miles' first-hand knowledge of crime makes his star rise with the LA police, who wonder whether he is actually from Internal Affairs, an FBI plant, or a Navy seal. "Blue Streak" is as light an actioner as you can get, even in the summertime, a frolicsome film that's destined to bring in a fun-seeking teen audience.

    Rated R.  Running Time: 93 minutes.  (C) 1999
    Harvey Karten

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