Well, while I enjoyed the earlier film, National Security just doesn't come through all that well. The movie follows two characters. Lawrence plays Earl Montgomery, a police academy reject who has gone into security, and Hank Rafferty (played by Steve Zahn), who recently saw his partner gunned down.
Well, soon after getting back to work after the incident, Rafferty comes across Montgomery trying to get into his own car. The stressed-out Rafferty starts to lose his temper, but things don't get bad until a bee shows up on the scene and the two try to kill it (apparently Montgomery is very allergic). From the outside (as well as the point of view of a handheld camera), it appears that Rafferty is beating the black suspect, and when pictures of Montgomery's swollen(bee-stung) face get out, the police force has no choice but to fire Rafferty and put him on trial for assault and excessive force.
When Rafferty finally gets out of prison 6 months later, he too heads into the private security business. Still feeling the pain of his partner's death, he spends his nights off listening to radio traffic, hoping to find similar reports to those that he and his partner went on several months earlier. When he finally hears the same type of report, he rushes off to the warehouse where yet another burglary is going down (in a very similar manner to the previous one). Unfortunately for Rafferty, this happens to be the same warehouse Montgomery is assigned to, and once the initial shock of the situation wears off, the two have to reluctantly work together to go after the thieves.
While the two characters learn to work together (sort of), they constantly fight and don't really start getting along until late in the movie. Because of the supposed beating Rafferty gave Montgomery, Rafferty's girlfriend left him, and even though Montgomery said that he would tell her the truth to make things better, he backs off when he finds out she is black. Similar events keep Rafferty on the verge of really beating Montgomery up and all the while, they are doing what they can to stay away from the real cops and track down the crooks.
Other side characters in this comedy include Lieutenant Washington (Bill Duke), and Detective Frank McDuff (Colm Feore), both Rafferty's former bosses, and both ultimately have major parts to play in the plot.
I have to say, I really enjoyed Zahn's part as he always seemed on the verge of exploding. The movie would have felt completely different had anyone else taken the role. Meanwhile, Lawrence's character felt way too generic. I just didn't feel Martin Lawrence brought anything unique to the part of Montgomery. I felt like you could have placed pretty much any current black comedic actor into the part and it would have felt just the same.
As for special features, there pretty much isn't anything there worth mentioning. With a commentary track, a music video and some deleted scenes, there just isn't a lot extra here. If you need to get this movie, there isn't any reason to pick up the Blu-ray version over the DVD one, but quite frankly, I wouldn't really recommend it for a rental.
