It seems that Hollywood moguls cannot make up their mind about where Jet Li and Jason Statham really belong. Both boast undeniable charisma and a formidable physical presence, yet both oscillate between nominally seemingly high-profile fare and decidedly B-movie material. War exemplifies this phenomenon to a great extent: it crosses a bucketful of cliches and the formulaic mechanics of the second echelon of action offerings with expertly choreographed fighting sequences and an unexpectedly ingenious plot twist that belong in a more expensive film. At the end you get more than you expected, yet kind of less than you secretly hoped for.
War is without a doubt a couple of notches above the previous collaboration between Li and Statham (the dire film The One) and action fans will watch it ad infinitum on DVD and on TV, but the big screen is not too kind to its shortcomings.
The movie has San Francisco as a battle ground between the Chinese triad and the Japanese yakuza, with a mysterious super-cool hitman called Rogue (Jet Li) playing both sides and dispatching his victims with an imaginative array of weaponry. His only serious problem comes in the form of no-nonsense FBI agent John Crawford (Statham). Said nominal champion of good and justice does not particularly care who comes on top in crime clans’ confrontation as long as he gets his vengeance on Rogue, whom he believes responsible for the demise of his partner and the latter’s family.
Visually and stylistically, the movie is hits the right notes with the fast pace and elegantly chaotic editing that seems all the rage right now. However, there is very little in terms of narrative drive to keep the viewer truly involved and interested. The proceedings seem like a rather laboured and needlessly convoluted route map along which the requisite action sequences are staged and one that would eventually lead us to the surprising twist, which I suspect to be the origins of the idea for this movie. The latter is indeed a treat, but it probably comes a bit too late and the payoff is chopped and stuck together a bit too swiftly and awkwardly. This lack of balance could probably be traced back to the fact that this is the feature debut of director Philip G Atwell, who has made his name making music videos, yet the charisma and presence of the film’s two stars manage to compensate for the shortcomings and make the experience worth your while.
Li was never great with English dialogue and the script is wise enough to give him very little of it. He is, however, a magnetic presence even when he does engage in his martial arts wizardry and makes for a genuinely intriguing enigmatic figure here, so much so that he all but overshadows his counterpart with equal billing on the movie’s poster. Statham is likable and imposing enough, but we are more inclined to root for the other action hero. That said, he, too, earns his paycheck with a committed effort in a part that could have been scripted better. Adding a bit of extra flair and interest to the proceedings is the presence of some familiar and well-respected faces: John Lone stands out even in the rather two-dimensional part of leader of the Triad, while Luiz Guzman and Saul Rubinek are spicing things up as an Interpol agent and a plastic surgeon, respectively.
