National Security
Tags: comedy, humor, action, violence

Plot synopsis:
Two LAPD policemen Hank Rafferty (Zahn) and Charlie Reed (Timothy Busfield) investigate a warehouse heist and discover a gang of thieves, one of which kills Charlie before they escape.
Meanwhile, Earl Montgomery's (Lawrence) lifelong dream to become a police officer is thwarted when he flunks police academy. After being warned by Detective Frank McDuff (Colm Feore) that he will be fired for interfering with the investigation of Charlie's death, Hank crosses paths with Earl when Hank notices Earl trying to get into his car when he finds his keys locked inside. When Hank questions Earl, a bumblebee comes along, to which Earl is allergic. From afar, it appears as if Hank is brutalizing Earl while attempting to swap the bumblebee with his nightstick while a Latino man catches the incident on videotape. As a result, Hank is fired from the police force and charged with aggravated assault against Earl. He is sentenced to six months in prison.
After being released from prison, Hank takes a job as a security guard and continues to investigate Charlie's death. Noticing an alarm being tripped at a soda warehouse, Hank goes to investigate. Meanwhile, Earl, who happens to be working for the same security company, is on duty at the same warehouse, but is slacking off. Hank interrupts the heist, and a gunfight erupts with the thugs, during which Hank and Earl cross paths again. Though the rest of thugs get away, Hank recognizes the tattoo of the man who shot Charlie, whose name he learns is Nash (Eric Roberts).
One of the thieves drops a cell phone, which leads them to a semi truck rented by the killers. After finding a van, Earl and Hank drive it out of the truck but the van falls off the bridge onto a garbage barge. Inside the van are what look like ordinary beer kegs, but Hank has them examined by a friend who works at a foundry, who informs them that the kegs are actually made of an aerospace alloy, which is worth millions. Hank takes the van and the kegs to the house of his ex-girlfriend Denise (Robinne Lee). They broke up after Hank was arrested, and Hank orders Earl to tell Denise the truth about the "assault." Earl promises, but when he sees that Denise is an attractive black woman, he starts hitting on her, playing the victim again. She throws both of them out of the house. Earl runs back to Hank, just as they are both cornered by police, learning that they are wanted as suspects in the bridge shootout. After they manage to escape, Hank realizes that the thieves must have an inside man in the police department to help them frame the duo for the shootout.
That night, after tracing the van's owner to an address, Hank and Earl stake out the place, but Earl rushes inside on his own, where he is confronted by Nash. Hank manages to get Earl to safety, but Earl takes a bullet in the leg. When Hank takes Earl to Denise to get his wound treated (which turns out to be a graze), a bee flies into the house, and Earl runs for cover, making Denise realize that Hank's outlandish story about the "assault" on Earl was actually true. She slaps Earl for lying and imprisoning Hank and reconciles with Hank.
Based on something overheard from Nash, they follow him to a meeting at a Yacht Club and witness him talking to McDuff, who is revealed to be Nash's inside man. Hank and Earl share everything they know with their boss, Lieutenant Washington (Bill Duke), and then pretend to approach McDuff, offering to sell him back the "beer kegs" for $1 million. However, Nash overhears their plans and takes Washington hostage first. During the confrontation, Earl and Hank meet with McDuff, Nash and their men near the coast, rescuing Washington and accidentally starting a shootout, but the trio manage to kill or apprehend most of Nash's gang, including McDuff. During the shootout, Hank saves Earl's life by warning him about a gunman taking aim at him, getting shot himself in the process, but survives. Earl engages in a fight with Nash while a wounded Hank gets up. He kills Nash by dropping a crane load onto an unstable slab, catapulting him into the ocean.
Six months later, in honor of their heroic actions, Hank is reinstated in the LAPD and Earl is admitted to the force, and they are made partners a short time later. The two encounter a situation similar to where they met with a man apparently locked out of his car and help him out. Afterwards, they learn the car is in fact stolen and in stopping the man, Earl accidentally destroys the car.

Review: However when they steal the gang's merchandise they find themselves hunted by both the gang and the cops.Although I like to think of myself as having reasonably good taste  I do find Martin Lawrence funny.
Sadly though, the poor action and poor plot is by no means the worst part of this film.Easily the worst part of this film is the fact that 99% of the `jokes' are based on race  in particular Martin Lawrence's comments which are either a) laments on the victimisation of his race or b) reverse-racism remarks that border on the offensive and would certainly never be allowed to pass if the lines had been given to his white co-star.
Even if you think I am making a big deal out of nothing  just imagine this whole film if even half of Earl's dialogue had been said by Hank  there would simply have been an outcry!To make the offensive material worse  it is rarely funny.
Zahn is poor  I have not seen him in a strong role but this must be a step backwards even by his standards  he suffers at the hands of racist remarks and comes off badly  even his relationship with Denise is played for laughs as the writers expected the audience to find it a joke that Hank could land with a `fine sista' like that, it even goes so far as to have Denise admire Earl's penis!!
I usually don't like Martin Lawrence and I find his anti-white humor to be quite offensive as well as his string of bad movies.
But compared to his other movie of 2003 (that would be the shockingly awful Bad Boys II), National Security is a rather easy-going and light-hearted cop comedy flick with quite a few good laughs.
A lot of them, surprisingly, coming from Lawrence himself.Hank Rafferty (Steve Zahn)is a cop who is unfairly thrown in jail for apparently beating a black suspect (Lawrence) who just got kicked out of Police Academy.
Determined to follow up on the big case he was involved with before serving time, he crosses the path of fellow security guard Earl Montgomery (Lawrence again) and the two reignite their old conflict.The old love/hate buddy thing may be old and the plot may be silly but it's a great excuse for loads of action set-pieces and humor.
The movie's plot line is pretty funny and the action and comedy are good - not laugh out loud good but more like humorous :) I do think that you can watch it more than once.
Steve Zahn and martin Lawrence do portray a good but unstable team in the film but thats all part of the humour.
As pointed out on the message boards for this film, every bad guy in this film is white, and Lawrence's character plays the race card every other second in this movie.
I would have been just as offended had this movie targeted black people instead of white(the film would also have been shot down far quicker and more broadly), or if Saving Silverman had been hateful towards men, for that matter.
I'm 100% confused by what Lawrence tries to accomplish with this movie, besides doing a ninety minute round up about what he apparently would like everybody to believe to be 'the way that black people should act'.
Martin Lawrence was great, very funny, but if your not the sort of person who can have a laugh and have a silly side then you'll find him a put off, truthfully people need to lighten up.
I pity all the people who say Lawrence is racist, I don't take offence and at the end of the day he is an actor acting, and a good funny one at that.
This could have been quite bearable though, if it wasn't for two reasons: A very annoying central performance, and an incessant racism and sexism streak that permeates the production.The film actually starts out quite well, with Steve Zahn playing the straight role as the police officer who, with his partner, makes a warehouse bust and become involved in a shoot out with the bad guys.
After spending the best part of six months in solitary, he can be forgiven for wanting to knock Lawrence into the middle of next week for lying at the trial and generally being an obnoxious idiot, but for the time being the two must team up as security men to crack a metal alloy smuggling ring (don't ask) one of whom's members wouldn't you know, turns out to be the guy who shot Zahn's partner.
Funny that!Every time Lawrence opens his gob in National Security, it will either be a) A white man/ black man joke or b) a statement along the lines of "I know more about police work than you do." It is true that Eddie Murphy said much the same things in the Beverly Hills Cop films, but he actually made some effort to flesh out his character and provide himself with some semblance of personality, here Lawrence seems to takes offense to everything that is said or done to him and responds with a tirade of racial jokes, which grow old real fast.
Unlike Lawrence, he has a few emotional moments that he handles quite well, though they feel out of place in what is essentially a knockabout comedy.The plot goes off on its tired little way, and we get crosses, double crosses, plenty of fights between our combative twosome and lots of completely over the top explosions, which must have ate up at least a third of the budget (Lawrence and Zahn aren't exactly marquee names.) You'll probably  more fun ticking the cliches off: The Police chief is a big black man, The lead villian has bleached blonde hair (He looks like a grown up version of Malfoy from the Harry Potter flicks) and the partners who can't stand the sight of each other are best friends by the end of the movie.
In this movie, the character played by Martin Lawrence unfairly blames his life problems on white America.
Martin Lawrence was absolutely funny in this movie,, he had so many great one liners I couldn't stop laughing the entire movie,, yeah the buddy cop genre has pretty much worn out it's welcome in the last 20 years.
the main story of the movie is that our main character arrests a man and turns out he wasn't even guilty,, together they are thrown together to go up against some bad guys , and have a lot of fun in doing so..
I loved how martin lawrence kept pushing the racial jokes and "oppresion" or whatever you want to call it.And the looks on Steve Zahns face are PRICELESS!!!I think it's a good thing when they put racial differences in comedy movies....because if you can't laugh at it, what's the point?
You can't go around taking every little thing serious....and if you do then i truly feel sorry for you!Yes I am white and have many black friends that find this kind of comedy extremely funny...i watch these kinds of movies with them on a regular basis!
(so don't even say im racist)Martin lawrence is EXTREMELY funny as usual.....nuff said.Steve Zahn is one of my FAVORITE un-utilized actors.
It's almost just as good as Bad Boys and Bad Boys 2 (bad boys and bad boys 2 are A lot better overall....but tension-wise, martin lawrence and steve zahn are almost PERFECT partners and enemies at the same time).
Earl Montgomery (Martin Lawrence) lies and tells police that he was beaten by a good cop named Hank Rafferty (Steve Zahn) after getting kicked out of the Police Academy.
Overall, this movie is just your everyday Martin Lawrence crap and is no different from any other low-budget comedy.I do not recommend this film..
I just saw this movie, and although Martin Lawrence has his good points, I don't think it was one of his best.
National Security is directed by American comedy regular Dennis Dugan, and this was before he directed some truly @#%#ing crap movies ("I now pronounce you Chuck and Larry" and "The Benchwarmers" were two latter comedies he should undoubtedly regret making.) The result is his funniest film I've seen, and Martin Lawrence always makes me laugh anyway.The story begins with a cop, Hank (played by Steve Zahn, from Sahara) who is sent to jail for half a year, rid of his job and girlfriend while still under stress from the death of his partner because of Earl (Martin Lawrence from Big Momma's House)'s annoying attitude leading to a confusion of Hank beating Earl with a baton.
It's about these two security guards (Martin Lawrence and Steve Zahn) who hate each other but still have to work together.
Picture this film made with the roles reversed, Steve Zahn making jokes at black peoples expense for 90 minutes.
I also echo the thoughts of other comments on Mr Lawrence,its about time someone told him that he is neither an actor or funny.Perhaps I am being a bit harsh, and you could argue that he can only do whats scripted for him and that as a stand up comedian he is funny,but I'm sorry he does nothing for me,he's not a Richard Prior,Will Smith or Eddie Murphy One last comment is I can only think that Bill Duke and Steve Zahn did this movie,sorry rubbish for the money..
The whole "black paranoia" thing present throughout this film gets VERY old VERY quickly, but otherwise the movie is just an entertaining comedy; nothing more, nothing less.
Also, Martin Lawrence has more movies coming out this year with "Bad Boys 2" (with Will Smith) and the other sequel, Blue Streak 2.
Forgettable buddy movie that has it moments of sincerity thanks to Martin Lawrence and Steve Zahn , whose chemistry is better than this really bad film that does not know what it really wants to be.
My main problem with this movie was the trading of good-natured, universally funny comedy for racist, offensive, needless attacks on both white and black people.
Some of the jokes are funny, but so often it seems like all Martin Lawrence can do is make jokes at the expense of white people, or call them out for things that could only be taken in a racist way if one is just looking to cause trouble, which it seems that Lawrence's character is.
There is a constant barrage of humor around the subject of racism, and it's annoying to think that this movie would not have worked had the roles been reversed and it was Steve Zahn's character who was constantly calling black people racist.
I also felt that the focus on Lawrence's dislike for white people left little room for Zahn to show how funny he can be, and as a result, neither of the two main stars delivered as good a performance as both are capable of.
The constant racism jokes also didn't allow for the plot line of Hank and Earl posing as cops to fully be explored, and this was only glossed over, and really just used as device to allow the two to engage in the constant action, and it would've been nice if the 'security guards as cops' concept could've been explored more.Aside from that, I did like the movie, and it achieved what it set out to do; deliver a fast-paced action comedy, emphasis on action, with loads of punches, bullets, car chases, and crude jokes.
The movie is fun, and Lawrence and Zahn do have chemistry, but Lawrence is not Eddie Murphy or Chris Tucker, and it feels like if his character was tweaked just a little, this movie would've been vastly more enjoyable, as he doesn't quite seem to grasp what made Eddie Murphy in 48 HRS and Beverly Hills Cop or Chris Tucker in Rush Hour so great; their constant banter, one-liners, and likable, underdog, everyman personalities that make you want to root for them.The action sequences are well-made, with a large shootout in a soda factory, another shootout in an office building, and a final, explosive battle in which everyone has a gun, and which ultimately ends in a brutal final fight between Lawrence's character and the main villain.All in all, it's a fun buddy cop action comedy for fans of the genre, or for anyone interested in a lighthearted, action-packed romp.
Way to go there for the fight for civil rights Mr Lawrence.The action sequences are well staged, Eric Roberts is wasted as the bad guy, there is a subplot about police corruption but I have seen this done better in 48 Hours or Beverly Hills Cop..
I rented it expected something more like Bad Boys (in which Martin Lawrence was actually funny).
What I got was 88 minutes of offensive, horrible film making.Whites would be offended by this movie, and blacks should (and indeed many are) outraged by it.
Martin Lawrence's nonstop racist "jokes" and racial stereotyping is supposed to be a funny parody but just comes off as plain stupid, insulting, and offensive.
Hank (Steve Zahn) is a dedicated police officer while Earl (Martin Lawrence) is a security guard who longs to join the force.
After exactly 52 minutes the black bigmouth gets serious and the showdown can start.National Security follows this plot (like many other films) but the script is very weak and the acting is very poor.The first 52 minutes are painful and the remaining 28 minutes had some fun and action.My personal recommendation: watch this while doing your regular job but never spend a Dollar, Euro or Yen on it..
The movie centers around Earl Montgomery (Martin Lawrence), a security officer, and Hank Rafferty (Steve Zahn) an ex-police officer who turns security officer after what seems to be a phony Rodney King beating.
God knows this man is suffering after this movie, like, "What the #$*@ was I thinking!?" But nonetheless, after a complete farce like "National Security", I still like the guy...as for Martin Lawrence...well...What was he thinking!?
But after that it seemed like it was the only joke they could come up with...namely Lawrence.We couldn't help but sympathize with the character of 'Hank' -- God only knows he would've been better off with Jack Nicholson in "Anger Management" because he did a good job keeping calm around the ever so annoying "Earl".
I was really hoping this would be Martin's comeback "funny" movie after the flops "Whats the Worst that could Happen?" and "Black Knight", but now these seem a lot better in comparison to "National Security".
I've seen most of his movies and I like the tv show Martin but National Security is just plain bad.
The whole black/white and buddy thing is old and Martin Lawrence is just plain annoying in this film.
I'm not usually a fan of Martin Lawrence or these types of movies (although Nothing to Lose was great), but I find National Security really funny.
I don't know what it is about Martin Lawrence that makes him so funny, but he's sure got something working for him.
Now he's got "National Security", a return to the Martin Lawrence Formula of Schtick but with a veteran comedy director (Dennis Dugan of Happy Gilmore and Big Daddy fame) and an equally funny co-star (Steve Zahn).
martin lawrence is sometimes funny, but in this movie i just found its constant crying about how black people are poorly treated and how white people are just evil slave masters constantly trying to get the black man down tiresome...So if feeling sorry about your race and putting the blame on everyone else is your kind of humor im sure you would really like this movie...
Sadly, everything that makes a good buddy cop action-comedy film goes wrong in this awful Martin Lawrence vehicle and the result is a terrible almost offensive waste of film.Lawrence plays Earl Montgomery, a mere security guard who always has wanted to be an L.A.P.D. cop.
After both discover an illegal operation in a warehouse, they decide to solve the case and use it as their vehicle to become cops again.Well, the plot is a very good set up, and no doubt the crew tried to make a light-hearted comedy with an anti-racism message; however, Martin Lawrence's character terribly kills the film as he turns out as a very unlikeable character.
Zahn keeps his dignity intact and gives a commendable performance, probably the only thing worthy in the entire movie.Many people would like to put the blame of this failure entirely on Martin Lawrence's talent, but; while I'm not too fond of his over-the-top acting, he has done very good things in the past ("Life" comes to mind) so maybe with a better script the results had been different.
His character was devised to be an annoying whiny jerk, so probably we can say that Lawrence got it right."National Security" has a few good things (good action scenes, Steve Zahn's performance) but the few brilliant spots are irremediably killed by the awful way the script was developed.
I was expecting this film to be the usual buddy movie, following a well-known plot and giving me lots of déjà vues.But this film managed to surprise me after all by having Martin Lawrence playing a totally racist character.
Martin Lawrence's latest awful movie goes from just being a bad comedy to being downright offensive, and in the worst way possible..
This was the first time I saw Martin Lawrence in a movie.
I actually like Martin Lawrence and I will admit that he had one funny scene a few minutes into the film, but his character quickly becomes obnoxious, bigoted, and annoying that I couldn't stand him.
I know Martin Lawrence isn't the best actor in the world, but does he really have to play the exact same character in every movie?
Martin Lawrence was average in this movie, exactly what you'd expect him to be-which could be a good or bad thing.