Review: 'Replacement Killers' gunning for a hit

February 17, 1998
Web posted at: 7:50 p.m. EST (0050 GMT)

From Reviewer Paul Tatara

(CNN) -- Hong Kong action movie fans take heart. Antoine Fuqua's "The Replacement Killers," starring Chow Yun-Fat (the Chinese Clint Eastwood) and Mira Sorvino, is the Americanized John Woo movie that Woo hasn't really gotten around to directing yet.

As critically praised as "Face Off" was (and as sharp as its action scenes were), Woo was still leaning too heavily on Jerry Bruckheimer-ish cartoon performances to really allow his brilliantly choreographed shoot-outs to drive the picture the way they should.

Woo produced "The Replacement Killers," and I think not being behind the camera has loosened him up a little bit. He's got a first-rate pupil in Fuqua, and, as dumb as the movie is, it's a beautifully made piece of razzmatazz. It contains some astonishingly precise moments of hyper-violence, and, I have to say, I enjoyed a lot more of it than I really should have. The whole thing's a balancing act, though -- one more step over the top and I would have started hating it.

Yun-Fat plays a hit man for the mob who's been assigned the vengeful task of killing the 8-year-old son of a cop (played by Michael Rooker) who dared to blast away the much-older son of a Chinese crime lord. The catch is that Yun-Fat is an honorable man, and, when he has the little tyke in his sights, he can't pull the trigger.

This betrayal of the Big Guy forces him to attempt a clandestine trip to China before his own family gets splattered all over the living room, revenge style. He'll need a fake passport, of course (they always do), so he pays a visit to the oddly cast Mira Sorvino. Mira makes fake IDs for desperate criminals ... that is, when she isn't getting together with Marisa Tomei to giggle over their unexplainable Academy Awards.

Sorvino's real-life boyfriend, a John Woo obsessive named Quentin Tarantino, may very well have been the instigator behind her bizarre appearance in this movie, but I'd also be willing to bet that he went out and bought her something nice after he got a load of her blowing gangsters' brains all over the place for a couple of hours. Boys will be boys, after all.

Less-than-effective performance or not, I think her appearance is a very astute move on Sorvino's part. There's absolutely an untapped market in this country for Hong Kong-derived shoot 'em ups, and she's the first "name" actress to dive into one, both guns blazing. She displays a ton of pistol-packin' bravado during the action sequences, and you certainly couldn't accuse her of being prissy. I just didn't believe anything she said.

Quicktime Video Scene from the film 1.7M/44 sec./160x120

VXtreme Video Full theatrical trailer

If you're a regular reader of my reviews, you're well aware of the disdain I usually harbor for ridiculously over-shot action movies, so I think I have to explain the intricacies of how something like this appeals to me. There's more than enough absurd icy-blue lighting and billowing smoke, and the camera often gets too antsy for its own good, but there's a cohesive sensuality to the images in "The Replacement Killers" that's often fascinating.

Rain-slickened streets, billowing smoke, and sparks from ricocheting bullets roll across the screen like puddles of color and movement. It's near-hallucinogenic at times, although you eventually start to feel like you're watching a furious perfume commercial.

For the most part, though, Fuqua manages to avoid the superficial tackiness of something like "The Crow" by focusing on the sheer visceral power of gunplay. The sound is also impressive, with bullets zipping behind your head and pistol shots exploding in your face.

If that sounds like it would give you a headache after a while, it probably would, but I know a lot of people out there have gone bonkers for the same kind of thing done with a third the flair and technical artistry. There are astonishing shoot-outs in a car wash, an office, and a pinball parlor, among others, and each of them moves with real kinetic energy. The spaces in which the scenes take place are used for maximum dramatic impact, rather than the film itself being spliced together to force mass hyperventilation on the audience's part.

This is as good as modern action movies get, and that's not really good enough, but "The Replacement Killers" should fill the void until Woo gets around to directing his American masterpiece.

"The Replacement Killers" is VERY VIOLENT. I'd estimate that about 70 people get so riddled with bullets they end up looking like well-dressed entrails. Remorse, as you might expect, seems to be for sissies. Rated R. 110 minutes.

Related sites:

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• The Replacement Killers - Official site
• IMDB: Replacement Killers, The (1998)

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