The Dissapointing Showdown

Watching Rogue Assassin made me want to go to Film School and actually learn a thing or two about basic, proper and entertaining film direction. Unfortunately, it (the movie, Rogue Assassin) did so in a very unflattering way. It showed me all the things you should not do if you want to keep your viewers' interest to the film. Ah yes, time for the review—lots of space to grumble later on.

The premise of Rogue Assassin is to have Jason Statham squares of with Jet Li in an action-packed fight scenes too cool to be true. Sounds like a great combination–Li's beautiful martial arts brilliance and Statham's street-cool charisma. Unfortunately, someone forgot to properly inform the scriptwriter about this, and off they go writing a lame thriller-spoof that failed on all accounts of believability, thrill, deception and most importantly – cool factor.

Not to mention the horrendous dialogue. Like how in the middle of the movie, Statham's character suddenly felt a touch of family love and opened up to his wife about how scared he is. Or the dialogue he had with Jet as they faced off close-up for the first time. Ah yes, the review!

Statham plays Jack Crawford, an FBI agent whose partner and family was apparently brutally killed by a famed assassin Rogue (Jet Li). Three years later, clues to Rogue's presence resurfaced and Statham's world unraveled into a vortex of killings, killings and more killings. Mayhem erupted between the Yakuza and the Triads, with the mysterious Rogue seemingly at the epicenter of it all. It soon becomes clear that Rogue is playing both sides against each other, and it's up to Statham to find out why and stop him. Towards the end of it, the plot becomes a lot more complicated that it should and it simply did not deliver on all the promises it had.

Allow me to elaborate further as to why this simple movie disappointed me so much. Jason Statham has actually grown to be one of the largest action brand in the past few years. Combining his bare-knuckled, ultra-violent smack-downs with a unique bleed of style and street roughness, Statham has delivered in movies like The Transporter Doubles and the utterly out-of-control and ultimately extremely-entertaining Crank. Rogue Assassin unfortunately was way off the target. In this not-so action-packed movie, Statham barely flexes his muscle in a single sequence in a Japanese teahouse.

Jet Li fared no better. His martial arts brilliance, which he so often demonstrated in the likes of Heroes and Fearless, were wasted here. His only memorable sequence was sword-fighting several Yakuza assassins but even that ended far too soon. In the end, the long-awaited showdown between Li and Statham also failed to deliver, ending in a short 30 second forgettable half hearted duel.

The movie lacks visual punch and I was left wondering about the action scenes. Was it well done? Beautifully coreo-graphed? I can't claim to know cause the director decided to zoom in on them far too often, and I can barely tell who's kicking whose butts. The pace falters, instead of getting down to the action it spends a lot more time untwisting the knot it got itself into. It tried too hard to be cool, and slipped down towards cheesy instead.

What else is there to say? I was utterly disappointed. This showdown held so much promise, yet delivered so little. Jason, come Crank me up man! And Li, show me how Fearless you are! Next time yeah?