Friday, August 24, 2007

What is it good for? Well, not quite absolutely nothing, but...

The teaming of action stars Jet Li and Jason Statham may raise audience expectations for a lean, mean ass-kicking machine, but War turns out to be a flabby and formulaic programmer. Early scenes appear to promise a clever commingling of elements from Dashiell Hammett’s Red Harvest (by way of Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo) with Michael Cimino’s disreputably rousing Year of the Dragon. But the flick quickly devolves into a standard-issue crime drama laced with routine martial artistry.

You can read my full Variety review here.

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