| Thailand-born film director Wych Kaosayananda pulls out all stops in his first English- language actioneer "Ballistic: Ecks Vs. Sever," a fast-paced, slam-bang, high-octane, revenge-thriller that pits Hispanic heartthrob Antonio Banderas against Asian beauty Lucy Liu of "Charlie's Angels" fame. Kaosayananda, who made "Fah," the highest moneymaking movie of all time in Thailand, has since slashed his multi-syllabic moniker to Kaos. Not only does this talented Asian action helmer live up to his alias, but also "Ballistic" traces the trajectory of its <more> title with a pyrotechnical frenzy. Our clench-jawed hero, our long-haired heroine, and a multitude of disposable but dastardly SWAT-style villains brandish a formidable arsenal of firepower, ranging from auto pistols to submachine-guns to rocket launchers, and unleash inexhaustible barrages of bullets in slow-motion for more than an hour with barely a word of dialogue. Moreover, when these one-dimensional archetypes aren't shooting up everything in sight, they resort to either kicking butt martial arts style a la "The Matrix" or demolishing dozens of cars, buses, SUVs, and railway freight cars. Although none of this nonsense remains remotely original, "Ballistic" delivers more than enough gunplay to compensate for its prefabricated, cookie-cutter plot about rival assassins.Cast as a disillusioned but fashionably disheveled ex-G-Man named Jeremiah Ecks, Antonio Banderas wears a single expression throughout "Ballistic" as nondescript as his rain-sodden trench coat. According to the melodramatic, bullet-riddled screenplay by Alan McElroy, whose credits include "Spawn" and "Rapid Fire," Ecks quit the Bureau after his wife died in an explosion seven years ago. Ecks nurses a drink in a dimly-lit bar with rain dripping off his trench coat when his former Agency boss Julio Martin Miguel Sandoval of "Mrs. Winterbourne" drops in and informs him that his dead wife is alive. Martin refuses to divulge the details until Ecks retrieves a microscopic assassination device from bad guy Robert Gant "Payback's" Gregg Henry which can be injected into a person's bloodstream and kill them when activated. Meanwhile, Gant faces troubles of his own when Sever Lucy Liu abducts his young son Michael Aidan Drummond and spirits him off to her Batcave of sorts where she hordes more hardware than most women have shoes. As an ex-DIA agent trained as an assassin because she was an orphan, Sever bears a grudge against Gant for killing her only child. When Gant isn't dodging Ecks and Sever, he contends with his grief-stricken wife Rayne Talisa Soto of "License To Kill who fears for her son's life."Ballistic" doesn't pretend to be anything more than a $70-million B-movie thriller. McElroy and Koas waste no more than a minute or two on expository dialogue before they load up this ode to the NRA and open fire. The taciturn cast spends more time ducking lead and spinning drop kicks than they do acting. One interesting shot shows a wounded villain plummeting backwards off a building to smash into a car beneath him. What makes the shot so fascinating is that we get to watch him as he falls without any cuts. As Gant's second-in-command, Ray Parks shows off his considerable martial arts expertise. Previously, Parks appeared in George Lucas's "The Phantom Menace" as Darth Maul and as Toad in "X-Men." Round for round, "Ballistic" contains more than enough violent action and plot reversals to keep its audiences enthralled during its lean, mean, 91 minute running time. <less> |
