The Big Hit

I walked into this movie expecting Loads O' Action, having been Wooed by the prospect of the executive production of the John of that name, the commercials' incessantly repeated shot of Marky Mark rolling down stairs as Pras of the Fugees raps, and certain pungently funny lines which, I assumed, were being delivered to provide small breaks in the tension of the action (like in "Commando" where Rae Dawn Chong asks Ahnold what he has done with a man that Ahnold has just dropped off a 100 foot embankment and Ahnold says "I let him go"). I think this is what everyone else in the theater (the inimitable AMC City Place) expected too, because after the tiresomely overblown opening action sequence (people who aren't John Woo shouln't try this kind of thing. There is no "Woo Tang Clan") the jokes started flying, and we weren't laughing. I mean, we eventually got used to it, but you shouldn't go to this expecting "Face/Off" with more annoying actors.

In any case, a movie can get to be good through a number of routes, even when considering the same movie ("Titanic" is a touching story about two young people in love or about Leonardo DiCaprio's desperate struggle against a painful death he deserves and which eventually catches up with him, depending who you talk to). This is not a good action movie, because Marky Mark is not a good action hero. As a matter of fact, he sucks. He's wooden in just the wrong sort of way. Trust me. This is, in fact, an OK comedy about a sensitive hit man and his woman, sort of like "Grosse Pointe Blank" with a hole drilled in the back of its head and all the brains sucked out. It is also an OK moron comedy. When I say "moron comedy" I am referring to the best of Jim Carrey's oeuvre, or better yet, films such as the "Naked Gun" series: a comedy where many of the jokes are in extraordinarily poor taste and virtually all of them are juvenile, but the director doesn't dwell on them and they keep coming and eventually some of them seem funny. (Examples: The Japanese patriarch's movie is named "Taste the Golden Spray," which joke everyone in the theater got and no one who reviewed the movie did; one of the main characters, named Crusher, has just discovered masturbation and has taken, uh, quite a shine to it; much of the plot of the final chase scene revolves around Marky Mark attempting to return a rented movie.)

The main problem this movie has is that it can't decide whether to be a really stupid "Grosse Pointe Blank" (a film of which I am inordinately fond, BTW) or a moron comedy, which is too bad, because all of either one would be better than this jumble. The screenwriter has come in for much criticism for the vileness of a lot of this script, but it's really no more vile than "Don't be a Menace to South Central while Drinking Your Juice In The Hood," whose vileness got no real mention because everyone understood it was supposed to be distasteful. Here you get this flash of real chemistry between Marky Mark (the day I write the name "Mark W——-" is the day I hang up my keyboard. He's "Marky Mark" forever) and the charming China Chow, then what is supposed to be a cool action sequence (to be fair, the action scenes late in the movie are all better than the first one, which is not normally how it goes), then a menacing stare-down scene of the normal hit-man-movie type, then a joke about Crusher's new hobby, then everything else again.

If you think you can handle incredibly badly scripted, unsubtle tone and subject matter shifts, the individual parts are fine and sometimes outstanding, like the tender Marky Mark-China Chow courtship, every scene with Avery "Commander Sisko of DS9" Brooks being intimidating, and even a fair quantity of the moron jokes (although the masturbation thing gets pretty well wrung out; they went to the well too often there). It's pretty well-directed, and you at the very least never get the feeling I did during "Hard Rain" and "U.S. Marshals" like the movie would never ever end. Your call.

Believability: It's tough to evaluate this because it is, in fact, three movies, and the script stays pretty close to the rules in the action sequences but a romantic-comedic courtship has different standards, as does a moron movie. Sometimes elements of the moron movie intrude on the action, or China Chow gets caught up in the action portion of the movie, which you should really be led to expect but aren't. This brings down the score a bit. Also Marky Mark talks in about fifty different styles, which is the script's fault but makes him look stupid. (The whole gangsta patter the four hit people engage in is somewhat slick and Hollywood, as well.)

Tension: The pure tension scenes are really exhilarating because of Avery Brooks. How come he isn't this good on "DS9"? There is some interesting romantic tension between MM and CC. There is a certain amount of comedic tension when we meet and get to know the aphasic guy before he is killed. They don't add up; in fact, they cancel each other out.

Action: Okay, I guess. The first scene is terrible, as I said, but it gets better.

Attractive Man Count: You may have noticed a bit of reluctance lately to offer half-assed opinions on male attractiveness in movies, such as I seem to always want to end my evaluations with the sentence "But how am I supposed to know?" Thus I have employed the services of a person from work, Tonya, to evaluate this, and she says every hit person and Avery Brooks is pretty hot, for a total of five. Impeach that opinion.

Attractive Woman Count: I haven't been having that trouble here. China Chow is charming and cute, there's this black woman I've seen before but I don't know her name (I think she's the stripper in Ice Cube's movie) who is hot, and Christina Applegate moves away from her normal slut role to annoying Jewish chick, but still looks pretty good. 3.

Overall grade: C. Each of the individual movies would be at least a B, but who cares.

Public Service Announcement: Upcoming [in May 1998] Movies

• Number one on the list is "Jane Austen's Mafia!", what looks to be a charming and nuanced film from the director of movies of such subtlety and Algonquin Round Table-esque wit as "Hot Shots!" and "Hot Shots Part Deux." As far as I can tell, the plot has nothing to do with Jane Austen; they're just getting a dig in. Which is OK. I'm sort of excited about this one.
• Lethal Weapon 4: I think it is safe to say no one I know is excatly drooling over the prospect of another Lethal Weapon movie. However, the otherwise unremarkable preview does have, as its exit shot, the estimable Chris Rock saying "Hi! I'm Mel Gibson! Yeah, I might look a little different, but it's the same old Mel!" in that forcefully cheerful style he has perfected, and it's *really* funny, one of the funniest things I've seen this year.
• Also upcoming we have Jim Carrey's movie, "The Truman Show," in June. Here is an actual quote from Esquire magazine about this movie (remember that they said "Infinite Jest" was a work of genuis, so they can't all be half-assed):
  "An engaging genre of cheerfully subversive films finds its first near-masterpiece in "The Truman Show." It is enough to give one faith in the inspiring nearness of the new millenium. For here, out of nowhere, comes a picture that knows there is no subject as weirdly compelling as our strange relationship with television...Jim Carrey is Truman Burbank - honest, caring, amiable, hopeful. His wayward eyes and lunging comic spirit are Truman's life force. The project is unthinkable without Carrey."
  I don't think he's going to talk out of his ass in this one.

Well, I wrote the name Mark Wahlberg in my review of "The Yards," and I didn't hang up my keyboard afterwards. I used to be really into making obviously empty threats (not in regular conversation, in movie reviews). Now I'm more into sarcastic deprecation. Maybe I should make some obviously empty threats in my next review.

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