ShareThisBy BETSY PICKLE
Scripps Howard News Service
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
"War" is the "Mystery Science Theater 3000" of action movies, except you have to supply your own humorous commentary.
This may be the first action/martial-arts movie in which every single scene or line of dialogue has been lifted from another action or martial-arts film. Maybe it was a project for someone's editing class in film school. There's no originality, but the flow of redundancy is impressive.
The film stars Jet Li and Jason Statham, in that billing order, which is the first clue as to how things are going to work in this patchwork plot.
John Crawford (Statham) is an FBI agent (with a British accent) whose beat is the Asian organized crime scene in San Francisco. He and his partner, Tom Lone (Terry Chen), are fighting a valiant fight against the Yakuza and the Triads, but they never seem to get ahead. Complicating the situation is a mysterious hitman known as Rogue, who may be a former black-ops agent and is said to have had his face surgically altered many times.
When Tom and his family are slaughtered, Crawford is convinced that Rogue is responsible. He becomes obsessed with catching his partner's killer, to the point of sacrificing his marriage. When gang action heats up in San Francisco, Crawford suspects that Rogue is back.
On the flip side of justice, the man believed to be Rogue (Li) has offered his services to Triad chief Chang (John Lone) after years of working for Yakuza boss Shiro (Ryo Ishibashi). There's some mumbo jumbo about family honor and vengeance, blah, blah, blah, but basically Chang and Shiro just want to have all the power and all the money. They don't realize that they are being pitted against each other by someone with a grudge.
Hackneyed as it is, "War" has some amusing moments and several entertaining fights. Statham ("The Transporter") is in his comfort zone as a tough guy always ready with a quip. Li ("Fearless") is intimidating as the no-nonsense man in black. There's no acting involved, just posing.
Crawford drives an old muscle car, of course, while Rogue is set up in a nifty, high-tech sports car. The FBI types humiliate the local police, and the gang members are the usual assortment of hotheads. Hurray for clichis!
"War" is complicated but not complex. It's a celebration of flying broken glass and flashes of fire, of fights with fists, guns, swords and axes. It's about the importance of integrity among those for whom laws don't matter.
Mostly, it's about looking cool while beating the stuffing out of somebody else.
Rated R for sequences of strong bloody violence, sexuality/nudity and language.
Two stars (out of five)
