Reviewed by Cassam Looch
Stars Clive Owen, Monica Bellucci,
Paul Giamatti, Stephen McHattie,
Greg Bryk, Ramona Pringle
Written by Michael Davis
Certification UK 18 | US R | Australia R
Runtime 86 minutes
Directed by Michael Davis
There is a moment early in this insane action movie where Clive Owen’s character exclaims: "Sorry for the messy delivery." Old Clive isn’t being hypercritical of his own performance, though (nothing quite so knowing in this film); he is instead apologising for shooting the umbilical chord off a new born baby. Yes, and that is one of the tamer moments in this John Woo inspired non-stop ride that even for its brief runtime feels like an over-long set piece from a thousand other films you’ve seen before.
Owen plays the rugged Smith, who finds himself left holding the baby and pursued by a shockingly poor hit squad that not only lack aim, but any sense of originality as well. Chief among them is Hertz (Giamatti), a family man with a very nasty streak. Smith soon teams up with game girl DQ and they try to protect the child from the men with guns. You may feel I’m padding the outline for the film at this stage, and truth be told that’s it. The last sentence was just to keep the word count respectable!
I first read about this film In the late 1990s. There was an online black and white animated "trailer" that mocked up several of the scenes, and it looked fantastic. A full on adrenaline movie, like Woo’s Hard Boiled but with all the annoying "character" and "jazz" stuff taken out. Suffice it to say, I was a lot younger back then.
The film lacks any coherent structure and scenes crash into one another rather than develop naturally. Most of the acting is poor and even the gunplay feels dated. And yet, I can’t help but think what I would’ve have made of this film if I had seen it a few years ago. It remains faithful to the animations I remember and there is a real sense of unrestrained pleasure in some of the more violent sequences. For the first half of the film you will take it all in, the bullets will make an impact and it might even put a smile on your face. Soon it becomes a little too tiresome and repetitive, with Smith suffering only a slight flesh wound as the bad guys (literally) pile up.
There will be two types of people who walk out of the cinema after this film — those who ask "why?" And those who respond with, "Why not?" Having seen the film, reviewed it and spent a few hours contemplating it, I still can’t decide where I would fit in...