The Art of War
review by Elias Savada, 25 August 2000
Slick
as the soaking rain that pours through much of this
dregs-at-the-end-of-summer action chase flick, The
Art of War is drenched with a script so incomprehensible you’d
prefer Chinese water torture than wracking your brain trying to keep
score. The only person who wins is the dry cleaner working overtime
trying to keep Wesley Snipes’ secret agent Neil Shaw’s designer
rags from shrinking in the Big Apple downpours he can’t seem to
avoid, or the glazier who gets to fix all the broken windows. It’s
another in the string of bigger-than-life pictures (Blade,
U.S. Marshals, and Passenger
57 among them) that showcase Snipes’ unwavering admiration for
the genre and martial-arts infatuation, even if his acting skills
are sidetracked for chop-socky stunt work, flashy editing, Matrix-style
special effects, and some really dumb dialogue and a predictably
soggy ending supplied by Wayne Beach (co-writer of Snipes’ Murder
at 1600) and Simon Davis Barry, who gave up (perhaps
temporarily) a career as an assistant cameraman. As students of
Pacific Rim social economics, they flunk.
As
a United Nations super secret agent, a spy without a license, Shaw
apparently likes to jot down superman as occupation on his resume,
and a gung-ho one at that. As the film opens, a millennium party
finds him as a short hair, black eyeglass, bow-tied Islamic Clark
Kent able to leap off tall buildings in Hong Kong in a single,
carefree bound. Later he dodges bullets shot at near point blank
range. His Lois Lane is Julia Fang (The
Corruptor’s Marie Matiko), a translator sucked up in the
intrigue following the assassination of the Chinese Ambassador
(James Wu) at a posh New York hotel recently purchased by David Chan
(Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa), a corrupt businessman. Seems everyone is
chatting Chan up as a bad egg, yet other than Shaw in disguise as a
bogus U.N. television reporter, security is nowhere to be found.
Except for a cadre of New York City cops standing outside in the
rain. Waiting to catch the wrong guy.
The
leader of the conspiracy behind sabotaging an impeding U.S.-Chinese
trade pact might be the possible mastermind of the killing, and of
the deaths of Vietnamese refugees stuffed in a dockside-shipping
container. Before you confirm that your guess is your final answer,
consider the possibilities:
Shaw:
Heck if he kills and blackmails for a living, even if it’s for the
American way. What about his reluctant partner in crime…
Julia:
Maybe she’s not really a translator. And don’t you hate people
who crack their knuckles. Isn’t that her on the phone with…
Shaw’s
supervisor, UN security chief of covert operations Eleanor Hooks
(Anne Archer): Perhaps she’s a clear and present danger. She’s a
career diplomat in need of a better makeup artist when she’s in
room with…
Her
well-coiffed boss, Douglas Thomas: The Canadian-born space cowboy
Donald Sutherland playing a Canadian-born lame duck U.N. Secretary
General who’s pissed at everyone for spoiling his party,
especially if it’s…
The
mysterious Mr. Chan and his Chinese triad minions:
Well, you know he’s knee deep in doo-doo. Is he actually in
it up to his neck? And standing right next to him on the podium is
Ambassador
Wu: Well it’s not him. The “architect of China’s future”
takes a bullet early on, but before that he aroused the suspicions
of…
The
FBI (sure they have bad apples too): in
the guise of Francis Cappella, an agent embodied as Santa Claus by
Maury Chaikin, who adds the most dimension to his lowly but serious
role. He doesn’t seem interested at all in…
Shaw’s
efficient, elite, high-tech sidekicks: Novak (Liliana Komorowska), and
Bly (Michael Biehn). A pale imitation of the guys from True
Lies they’re chock full of gadgets and throwaway lines. They
should be hired by the local cable company, because they sure know
how to stream embarrassing eyeglass-cam shots of a pedophilic North
Korean defense minister to big screen TV’s. In a pick-up
basketball game, Bly shows that white men can jump. Although I
don’t think they mention…
The
President of the United States: He gets his name bantered around a
few times. But he’s probably only interested in the interns down
in the lobby. Hey…
What
about Regis? Maybe it’s Kathie Lee? Mission: Improbable.
The
really guilty party is…director Christian Duguay (Screamers).
It’s a murky film with a loud soundtrack, creaky doors, and MTV
feel. I wouldn’t even want to own the DVD.
Two
dreadful flaws make a bad film worse. Shaw has the inexplicable
empathic ability to recreate unseen murders and see, via fuzzily
perceived flashbacks. He can see a gang member close up handing off
a computer diskette to an Asian compatriot. Shaw may be smart and
observant, but this is outright stupid.
One
of the places the hero goes to collect his thoughts is a
semi-abandoned tunnel under New York City, backing up any of the
cars he borrows deep within its bowels. His cell phone, while
certainly not standard issue, has perfect reception. Later, Julia
gets nothing but weak signals from the upper floor of the UN
building, crunched next to the window! Must be a bad service
provider.
Snipes
may be a dedicated soldier/warrior (he also co-produced), but The Art of War as conspiracy theory thriller earns no medals.
It’s dead in the water that engulfs it.
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