| “ | Fucking ratones, eating my fucking money! | ” |
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— Hector Tapia
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Hector Juan Carlos "Johnny" Tapia was a ruthless Cuban drug lord and the main antagonist of Bad Boys II.
Through the main act of the film, he is the distributor of ecstasy that goes through several shipments on behalf of the main Russian distributors.
He was portrayed by Jordi Mollà, who also played Xavier Heimdhal in Criminal, Nicolas Reyes in the second season of Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan, and Santana in Riddick.
Biography[]
Tapia runs a drug cartel operation arranging from a ecstasy factory manufacture in Amsterdam to casket-deliveries in the deep blue seas of the Gulf of Mexico. He gets a call from drug suppliers that the caskets filled with bags of ecstasy had been secured and that the shipments had succeeded.
Learning that his drug mules were busted in a raid against the Ku Klux Klan, he arranges his employers to change the boat schedules. He is later seen on the cellphone talking Russian nightclub owner Alexei, who distributes ecstasy on behalf of Tapia.
Tapia arranges a laundering for the Russians to launder their earned money to associate Sydney Burnett, who is actually a DEA agent, so she can deliver the drug money on a drop to Tapia's henchmen. However, the drop is cut short when Haitians violently sabotage the drug deal. Fortunately, the drug money is saved and Tapia's men picks them up. After the intense shootout, Carlos informs his boss that Syd managed to get the money delivered safely as Tapia shoots rats that are eating his drug money. He scolds his cousin and close assistant Roberto for his irresponsibility of letting the drug drop nearly ruined and also threatens to castrate him for swearing in front of Tapia's daughter.
Later, he arranges a meeting with Alexei. He has ordered Alexei's closest friend and middleman Josef Kuninskavich murdered and also his limbs cut off in a tortilla bin. Tapia threatens Alexei's family before having Alexei hand over all of his club property. In the meantime, detectives Mike Lowrey and Marcus Burnett infiltrates Tapia's mansion, posing as exterminators, and escapes when Roberto learns of their schemes. Breaking the last straw for Roberto's incompetence, Tapia murders Roberto in front of his men and tells his mother that he committed suicide. Tapia then orders a death bounty on Mike and Marcus to his men.
Tapia's drug payroll is botched when Mike and Marcus follow a morgue van consisting of dead bodies. Tapia, on the phone with Carlos, orders them killed. This eventually fails and as a result, the van driver is unintentionally killed during a struggle with Mike. At the crime investigation, Carlos learns that Mike and Marcus are not criminals, but policemen. The two obtain a warrant and this leads to the mortuary being raided. Tapia's mansion was about to be raided until Alexei botches it when he comes to kill Tapia as of revenge for Tapia having Josef murdered. In the meantime, Tapia discovers that Syd is a DEA agent and takes her hostage, managing to escape thanks to Alexei. He calls the duo to return his confiscated drug money in exchange for Syd's life. He relocates to Cuba with her as his hostage.
Tapia's compound is protected by the Cuban military. The protection cuts down when Mike and Marcus, along with DEA and volunteers from the Miami police, has a military assault on the Cuban mansion to rescue Syd. Tapia, enraged that his mansion is destroyed and drug operation is near-ended, gives chase to Mike, Marcus, Syd and Tito. They all land on the minefield of U.S. Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, in a Mexican standoff. Syd tosses her gun near the landmines, causing Carlos to be killed and giving Marcus time to deliver a skilled headshot into Tapia, killing him and upon his dead body landing on a mine, it explodes in half.
Personality[]
As a drug kingpin, Johnny Tapia delivers and ships ectasey. He is brutal in his business and will show his savage cruelty by murdering those in his way, even going far to kill his own cousin Roberto for letting Miami Detectives Marcus Burnett and Mike Lowrey investigating his mansion. Upon discovering Syd being a DEA agent, he threatens her life unless the detectives deliver his request. For some reason, when his daughter is in his sight, he turns off his relentless temper and crosses a happy, cheerful side and also showing greatful respect for his mother -- indicating his care and love for his mother and daughter. Besides this, he can be sometimes selfish and self-centered with his business; this is shown when he asks artists to paint angels looking down on his Jesus-esque self.
Trivia[]
- Hector is the last person in Bad Boys II to die.