THE REPLACEMENT KILLERS A film review by David N. Butterworth Copyright 1998 David N. Butterworth
** (out of ****)
Have you noticed nowadays how many movie previews push the name of the director almost as much the film's principal actors? "A film by Tony Scott" or "A Mike Nichols film" the guy with the mouthful of marbles will state confidently at the end of the preceding montage.
I would tend to guess that most people who drag their carcasses out to their local megaplex on a Saturday night couldn't care less who *directed* the film they're about to see. Half of them don't even care who's *in* it.
And so to "The Replacement Killers." The voice-over at the end of its television trailer somberly announces "Directed by Antoine Fuqua." Antoine who? Like, does anyone know who Antoine Fuqua *is*? (No.) Has he directed anything of note before? (No.) Has he directed *anything* before? (Yes, a music video.) So what's the point?
The point, unfortunately, is that "The Replacement Killers" *isn't* a film by John Woo.
Woo is the acclaimed Hong Kong filmmaker responsible for some highly kinetic action pictures on that side of the globe. His films are spectacularly staged ballistic ballets with, frequently, an ageless, charismatic leading actor called Chow Yun-Fat caught somewhere in the middle. Movies like "A Better Tomorrow," "The Killer", and the sensational "Hard-Boiled." Then Woo came to the States and made a couple of duds, "Hard Target" (with Jean-Claude Van Damme--no surprise there) and "Broken Arrow." Then he finally redeemed himself with last summer's "Face/Off." Next he's executive producing a comedy/actioner of sorts, "The Big Hit," "a Kirk Wong film."
"The Replacement Killers" certainly *looks* like it could be a John Woo film. (It should; he executive produced this one too.) For starters it stars Chow Yun-Fat. And it's choc-o-bloc with scenes of hit men (and Mira Sorvino!) flying through the air with both barrels blazing. But there the comparisons end.
The action sequences, of which there are many, are not particularly well staged, or crafted. They're just there. Ad nauseum. The plot, too, is relatively untaxing--hoods hound Chow when Chow reneges on hit; Chow drags Sorvino's forger around town as security for ticket back to mainland China to save family; Chow and Sorvino get shot at a lot--and it simply allows for more of those understaged, sub-crafted shoot-outs. As for style, Fuqua's approach seems to be black=cool. Witness Chow's sunglasses (indoors!), the shadowy exteriors, the leather garb of the title characters, and Sorvino's constantly exposed undergarments (she's supposed to be tough and we know that tough chicks like to hang around in their underwear, even when they're working, right?).
Chow and Sorvino make a respectable pairing, and even Jürgen Prochnow ("Das Boot") is suitably well-dressed and oily in a throwaway henchman role. When the replacement killers (cuz Chow reneged, remember?) track the good guys down to a crowded video arcade and start shooting, all of a sudden there's nobody around. Where'd everybody go? And why the heck didn't Chow and Sorvino go with them!? It's logic like that that leaves "The Replacement Killers" in the gutter time and time again.
Now that Chow Yun-Fat has crossed the ocean it would be nice to see him handling something a little more sophisticated than a pair of firearms (perhaps tinkling the old ivories like Clint Eastwood did in "In the Line of Fire"?). If you're planning on seeing Antoine Fuqua's film, let me suggest any Woo/Chow movie on videotape as a replacement.
-- David N. Butterworth dnb@mail.med.upenn.edu
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