Under the direction of rap-video alumnus Antoine Fuqua, this is as lean as possible in the quasi-balletic, semi-hallucinatory, hyper-pyrotechnical mode of action film that threatens to be the death of action films. Among the bits of trimmed fat are suspense, tension, credence, concern. Bullets outnumber words, and it is permissible to have a scene in which nobody is shooting at somebody (pause for introspection: "I cannot run from battle, from what I am") only so long as there are not two of them in a row. Chow Yun-Fat, leaner than his name, has been brought in from Hong Kong, much the way trigger men have forever been brought in from Detroit or Chicago in the gangster genre, to help meet the unending demand in the Hollywood job market for people who can shoot a gun and look cool doing it. He gets some assistance in the cool department from the use of slow-motion to escort him on a simple stroll along a corridor or around a corner, though he suffers in that department from the inclusion in his travel bags of homebred bathos: he draws the line at dropping the hammer on a cop's seven-year-old son, and he'll kill anyone else who dares to cross it. Mira (Oscar-winner) Sorvino, sporting a double-edge razor blade as a pendant on her necklace, plays it perfectly straight, and keeps her superiority (if any) under tight wraps. Michael Rooker, Jurgen Prochnow. (1998) — Duncan Shepherd
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