Red Corner (1997)
** out of *****
Cast: Richard Gere, James Hong, Peter Donat Written by: Robert King Directed by: Jon Avnet Running Time: 122 minutes
Red Corner, just like other movies of it's type (The Trial, Closet Land), reaffirms why I'm never going to a foreign country. Now how many times have we seen a movie about an American (in this case, Richard Gere) going to a foreign land (in this case, China), only to be accused of some crime (in this case, murder and rape) and then whining for the whole movie about American rights and ideals and all that? I mean yeah sure, we're a great country and all, but how many movies like this do we really need?
I'm not ruining anything by telling you that Gere is framed in the film, because never once is the audience led to believe that there's even the possibility of guilt on his part. Remember, movies today have no guts. Instead, we just watch Gere deal with being imprisoned in a foreign land, dealing with the foreign people, complaining about foreign law, etc. etc. We even know from the beginning why he's being framed, and this may sound stupid but it's technically all based around a clone of the TV show Baywatch. Yes that's right, a rip-off of Baywatch causes Gere to be framed for murder.
Red Corner is a film with no new concepts or ideas whatsoever, but yet is still slightly compelling enough to remain watchable, for the most part anyway. By the last 10 or 15 minutes though I was just ready for the film to be over and done with. Once the culprits were revealed, I just couldn't have cared less. [R]
The Jacksonville Film Journal -- Film Reviews by Chuck Dowling URL: http://users.southeast.net/~chuckd21/ Email: chuckd21@leading.net
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