September
20, 2002 | It's tempting to compare Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever
to a video game, but that would be giving it more credit for substance
and coherence than it deserves. Stylized to the point of abstraction,
and filled with tissue-thin characters who are defined entirely by the
actors hired to play them, this slam-bang hodgepodge plays like a series
of aggressively flashy and elaborately staged action sequences in search
of a plot. Think of it as a sleek, slick advertisement for itself -
maybe the longest coming-attractions trailer ever made - aimed at audiences
who value quantity over quality, when it comes to big-ticket cheap thrills.
Directed
with more kinetic flair than storytelling skill by Thai filmmaker Wych
Kaosayananda - who bills himself, quite appropriately, as Kaos - Ballistic
has something to do with Sever (Lucy Liu), a lovely, but-lethal rogue
agent who kidnaps the young son of a weapons-dealing arch-villain (Gregg
Henry), and something else to do with Ecks (Antonio Banderas), a dissolute-but-deadly
FBI operative who thinks Sever can help him locate his long-missing
wife.
It
may have something to do with other things as well, but that's as much
of the fuzzy storyline as I could figure out during those brief stretches
when people weren't engaging in heavy-artillery gunfights, or blasting
buildings and vehicles to bits, or shattering windows into slow-mo snowstorms
of silvery shards. Kaos obviously watched The Matrix many times,
and studied every John Woo movie ever made, before starting work on
this exhaustive compendium of action-adventure visual clichés.
Ultimately,
Ballistic really isn't about much of anything other than imagery
and attitude: The way Lucy Liu tosses her hair while reloading an automatic
weapon. The haughty balletic grace she brings to her kung-fu kicks.
The sub-zero cool Antonio Banderas displays while moping soulfully in
a bar, or matter-of-factly warning a bad guy: "She's going to kill
you. Good luck." The dialogue is minimal - Liu has, I think, maybe
10 lines in the entire movie - but the action is relentless. Maybe a
little too relentless: A couple of protracted and repetitious action
scenes have an oddly hypnotic, almost numbing quality, like a Philip
Glass movie score.
Here
and there, Ballistic seems poised on the brink of self-parody
- the full title evokes the Spy vs. Spy comic strip in Mad
magazine - and it might have been better for all parties involved if
Kaos had gone all the way into flat-out spoofiness. His actors certainly
appear game. At one point, Sever - who apparently sub-let the Bat Cave
as a hideout - reveals her abundant supply of weapons to a visibly impressed
Ecks. "Where did you get all these guns?" he marvels. With
just a hint of a smile, she replies: "Some women buy shoes…."