The Replacement Killers Review
by "Nathaniel R. Atcheson" (nate AT pyramid DOT net)February 12th, 1998
The Replacement Killers (1998)
Director: Antoine Fuqua
Cast: Chow Yun-Fat, Mira Sorvino, Michael Rooker, Jurgen Prochnow, Kenneth Tsang
Rated R: Strong violence, language
by Nathaniel R. Atcheson ([email protected])
I suppose there are different kinds of action films. Some action films are straightforward, while, at the same time, they mock themselves in self-consciousness because they know that action films are, by definition, ludicrous. Films like Die Hard and The Rock fit nicely into this category. The other significant category of action contains films like The Replacement Killers and Face/Off--these films utilize slow-motion, are very arty, very serious, and totally pretentious.
I don't have a problem with pretentiousness, especially when we're given actors, like Chow Yun-Fat and Mira Sorvino, who can pull it off. I had a great time with The Replacement Killers, and the reasons for this are very simple: it's an extremely well-crafted and energetic piece. It's also the kind of stylish, Asian action picture that mainstream American moviegoers don't see very often.
Yun-Fat stars as John Lee, a deadly assassin. In the early scenes of the film, a cop (Michael Rooker) is seen killing the son of Terence Wei (Kenneth Tsang). Wei, in an act of brutal revenge, hires Lee to dispatch of the cop's son. With the gun pointed at the seven year-old boy, Lee has a morality attack and refuses to kill the kid. Knowing that his life is in danger, Lee tries to get back to his family in China, so he goes to Meg Coburn (Sorvino) who makes fake IDs.
It doesn't take long for Wei's people to find Lee, and Lee is forced to bring Meg with him on his adventures. At this point, Wei hires killers to replace Lee and kill the boy. Meg convinces Lee that he has to kill Wei and all of his men, or the boy will never be safe.
Each review I read for this film speaks of an emotional void, a complete emptiness in anything of substance. My disagreement with this point is one of my central reasons for enjoying all of the pretentious flair of the action sequences: in several scenes (like one terrific moment during which Lee muses in a photo booth as his picture is being taken), the characters are actually given time to develop. And the two lead actors do great jobs of playing these people (Sorvino, once again, gives dimension to a character who would have been less appealing if played by most other actresses).
However (and expectedly), I didn't watch the film for the characters. Director Antoine Fuqua clearly knows what he's doing, and the action here rivals most scenes staged by the maestro himself, John Woo (who worked as executive producer of this film). The opening scene--in which Lee kills a group of culprits in a nightclub--is one of the better action sequences in recent memory. All of the action in the film is overflowing with that sharp style, filled with close-ups of guns, and slow-motion so we can see the graphic deaths and viscera in all of their detail. The pounding soundtrack also propels the film into an eclectic state that disallowed me from ever looking away.
I would have enjoyed this film more if I hadn't been hung-up on the central irony that was apparently overlooked (or simply ignored) by writer Ken Sanzel--this is a film about an assassin who takes mercy upon a young boy, and basically goes through a morality revolution. But never, in all of the scenes in which he blows away dozens of thugs, does he ever show any kind of remorse. True, they are trying to kill him, but in two specific scenes he has the villains at his mercy, and he executes them anyway. This seems thoughtless to me, and tells me that maybe some of the more thoughtful elements that I observed in the film were accidental.
But who really cares about that, anyway? This is an action film--an exciting, engaging, and flashy action film. It has Chow Yun-Fat, and Mira Sorvino, and techno music, and gunfire, and blood, and lots and lots of slow-motion. It's fun to watch, it got my blood flowing, and I recommend it based on these very simple criteria.
>From 0-10: 7
Grade: B
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