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War (2007)
Director: Philip G. Atwell
Movie review
From Time Out London
Jet Li and Jason Statham – together at last in a painfully banal cat-and-mouse action thriller with little action and no thrills. Statham, shouty and unmenacing as usual, is a San Francisco FBI agent of uncertain accent determined to take down the killer who took out his partner three years earlier. Prime suspect is Li’s Rogue, a super-assassin for hire who’s playing the Yakuza off against the Triads for reasons of his own. The battle between Chinese and Japanese gangsters (double your Orientalist exploitation!) forms the ill-defined backdrop to the portentous, uninvolving blather that constitutes most of the screenplay – a cliché-sodden farrago credited to two writers but feeling like the work of low-end script-generating software. It gets no better than it deserves; Li and Statham try to look moody but De Niro and Pacino they ain’t. Worst of all, the frenetic, unfocused editing robs the film’s few fight and chase scenes of any potency or tension they might have had; we barely even see Li kicking ass. So, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing.Author: Ben Walters
Time Out London Issue 1936: September 26-October 2 2007
User reviews of this film
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- mr.mike said...
- Posted on Apr 17 2008 02:13 Dull and overly complex actioner from the 2 usually reliable stars
- Report as inappropriate
Cast & crew
Director: Philip G. Atwell
Cast: Jet Li, Jason Statham, John Lone, Devon Aoki full cast
Genre(s): Action/Adventure, Thrillers
Rated: 18
Duration: 103 mins
UK Release: Sep 28 2007
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