Review: Rogue Assassin

It sounded too good to be true - Jason Stantam and Jet Li together in an action movie, but there was this nagging doubt in the back of my mind about the fate of established Asian action stars starring in Hollywood movies (remember The Medallion, The Touch, Bulletproof Monk, and The Myth with Mallika Sherawat in it?) Still, I guess I just wanted to see these two stars in action, together. By the end of the movie, I was thoroughly confused, and disappointed, sadly.

The movie has one of the most confusing plots, ever. Jack Crawford (Stantam) is an FBI agent who has sworn vengeance over the killing of his
partner. The culprit here is an assassin named Rogue (Jet Li), who leaves Titanium shells at the death site as a signature. Rogue apparently has been working for the Japanese Yakuza, but is later found out to be working for the Chinese triads. After a while the lines are blurred and you don’t know
whom he is actually working for. Lot of fights ensue, some car chases follow, some typical Chinese grindhouse action scenes are inserted, and the mystery is solved.

There was so much they could have done with this plot – developed super cool villains with patented moves (remember Kill Bill?), given Jet Li a meaty
role where he could be using his qualifications (an 8th Degree Black belt from Shaolin in various martial arts), rather than wielding a 9 mm pistol, given more action scenes to Stantam with his specialized bare knuckled-bone-crunching-punching, and so on. Instead, they put in a lot of dialogue, some show of teamwork and brotherhood, and a timid romantic angle.

The biggest disappointment of the movie is that the two big stars rarely have a scene together. The ones they have, are dulled by Stantam doing the talking/confrontation and Li looking at him with that signature deadpan look. Stantam does what he does best – look unshaven, bloodshot, and speak in that clipped British accent (that’s what he has been doing since he played the bad guy in Cellular). Jet Li, on the other hand, just stares at the camera, speaks a few lines in his broken English, and throws a few reluctant punches.

I think that is what happens to big Asian stars (Jackie Chan, Chow Yun Fat, Samo Hung) when they are cast in a major Hollywood production. Of course, there have been exceptions like Ken Watanabe (The Last Samurai and more recently Memoirs of a Geisha and Letters from Iwo Jima) who have maintained a fine balance between both genres. ( But then he is Japanese, and all these other guys are Chinese so the comparison is not fair.

Not to say any of these guys are bad actors though) Why can’t they create the same magic which they usually create in a movie made back home? The reason is that they are typecast in that boring ‘Asian-assassin-with-cool-moves’ mould, and given sophisticated guns. Hello? These guys are not known for their cool looks and dialogues! Imagine Jackie Chan sitting on a rooftop with a sniper rifle in his hands, when ideally he should be doing a four-storey somersault, and kicking some ass. I mean, it's just not fair.

Maybe they are just following the tradition of true-blue Hollywood action heroes who have rediscovered themselves to do more meaningful roles – Mel Gibson (became big with the Mad Max series, but went on to do movies like Braveheart and Patriot), Clint Eastwood (spaghetti star of yesteryears, completely reformed and now a many time Oscar winning actor/director), and Bruce Willis (started with the Die Hard series and went on to do movies like Twelve Monkeys and Sixth Sense). Sadly, Hollywood is not the place to rediscover themselves. I am not saying these guys can’t act. There have been big names like Tony Leung (Hero, House of flying daggers, and Infernal Affairs) who have proven time and again that action heroes can act, and wonderfully so. My point is, Bruce Lee wouldn’t be Bruce Lee if he had acted in a movie like Titanic now, would he?

So well, Rogue Assassin is just not predictable. It’s boring. If you are looking for an action-packed martial arts movie, this is not it. On the other hand, if you indeed are itching for some adrenaline-arousing movie, watch The Protector – a Thai movie starring Tony Jaa. Thrills are guaranteed!