| The best thing that I can say about the Replacement Killers is that it's very stylish. Director Antoine Fuqua is no John Woo or Stanley Tong (with Jackie Chan, not Mr. Magoo) but he shows sense of style. |
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From what I understand from Chow Yun Fat fans, Fat is not allowed to be the gun-artist badass that his fans are used to seeing. He's quiet & brooding in this film (an interview I read with him quotes him as saying his favorite role would be a big dumb guy with no dialogue), which isn't bad in and of itself, but screenwriter Ken Sanzel doesn't give him enough plot or crazed action to offset the contemplative side.
The music, a kind of hopped up testosteroni dance club trance assassination remix (compliments of Harry Gregson-Williams) implies more ass kicking than is actually occurring on screen. The bad guys appear in a steady, unreal viral stream like in a video game, ignoring logic of dramatic convention. |
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At no point do I ever really worry about Fat, even though he does not come off as supercop bad boy. I have not given up on Fat - I hear nothing but creamy things about him, but this is not the movie to start my fandom.
Mira Sorvino is smart, competent, and briefly in her underwear - but her character is an eerie paranoid sister to the one she played in Mimic. She's a little bit cyberpunk, a little bit rock and roll, and a lot misplaced sexual tension. |
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Loyal readers may note I am often bored by straight out gunplay (so is my most constant movie-going companion) and Replacement Killers does nothing to improve my feelings on the subject. If more directors could be as fun and original as Robert Rodriguez in Desperado or John Woo in Face/Off or Sam Raimi in The Quick and the Dead, well, maybe I would feel differently. But I don't. So I got kind of bored. I can be impressed by cool gunplay and neat camera work and visuals, but nothing really struck me.
In case you're wondering what the title means, it is literal and the killers don't show up until 55 minutes in, and they don't seem all that important enough to warrant being the title characters, but what do I know? |
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| I was mildly bored but certainly not miserable. It's worth seeing, but like eating Chinese food, it left me feeling unsatisfied. I'm glad the Hong Kong stars are getting work over in the States (besides Cannonball Run II) and I hope it continues, but not at the expense of their style. |
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