Step back in time with me to the late 2000 aughts, to an era where action movies had no identity, superhero movies were popular but not EVERYWHERE, and “shared cinematic universe” was still just a wet dream in the mind of Kevin Feige. Today we are going to talk about a couple of movies that everyone probably saw back in the day, but nobody actually remembers the plot. (That isnt an insult… the plot is pretty much non-existent.) Anyway, here are the trailers.
Now, I’m not going to do a deep dive into the plots of these 2, because really, there isnt much there. The first starts with a hitman named Chev Chelios (played by Jason Statham) waking up and playing a DVD (remember those?) left by a mobster, showing that he was poisoned with some concoction that slows down his heart. He quickly finds that if he keeps up his adrenaline, he is fine but if he slows down, he is going to die. All-in-all, its a pretty fun concept… the explanation of the plot takes less than 5 minutes, so the rest of the 90 minute runtime is a frenetic, quickly cut bunch of action scenes that moves so quickly you dont really have time to think about all the plot holes. Its a lot of fun to watch, and ends with him jumping out of a helicopter (without a parachute) to kill the antagonist.
The second starts with Chev Chelios in a makeshift hospital bed after the events of the first film. Somehow he survived, and some rich Triad mob boss has cut out Chevs heart so the mob boss can live forever. Because, ya know, Chelios survived after falling a mile out of a helicopter. They put an artificial heart into Statham’s chest, so when he finally wakes up and gets moving, he has to constantly electrocute himself to keep the heart going. The production values on this one are a bit better, but if i had to pick one, the first film works a bit better.
This being from the “Aughts”, the lead actress is Amy Smart. Honestly, she does pretty well, especially given the roll she has in the movie. The 2nd one especially includes a couple of pretty raunchy scenes, and she seems to be a genuinely good sport about the whole thing.
And honestly… the rest of the cast is pretty forgettable. This is certainly Jason Statham’s movie, in both the best and worst possible ways. Obviously Statham isn’t trying to be an Oscar winner, and these sorts of projects really cement that fact. He is playing an over-amped block of stone, shoved into ridiculous situations by a plot that requires he go balls-to-the-wall for the entire runtime.
Looking back on these films, its really feels like this could have only been made in that slim 5 year period, and there were several movies with this sort of feel. “Shoot ’em Up”, “Wanted”, “Smokin’ Aces”… These were movies where the filmmakers decided that the plot only needed to be as good as it needed to be, and let the action tell the story. Sure, those stories were nonsensical, but they were at least fun to watch. Once 2010 came around, we started coming into the MCU era, and these small but fun films stepped aside for universe building. Today, this sort of movie wouldn’t even get a theatrical release, but rather be dumped onto Netflix. And that’s a shame, because both of these movies, while not cinematic masterpieces, are certainly worth your time.
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