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BULLETPROOF
MONK
3/10
USA 2003 : Paul HUNTER : 103 mins
Such a great
title deserves a much better movie than this lame excuse for a culture-clash
action-comedy, in which Crouching
Tiger’s Chow Yun-Fat and Seann William Scott strike only slightly
more spark than last month’s east-west odd couple, Chan and Wilson from
the dire Shanghai Knights.
Chow is a nameless, ancient monk entrusted with an all-powerful Tibetan
scroll – which he must pass on to a new ‘chosen one’. This turns out to
be cocky Manhattan pickpocket Kar (Scott), who soon finds himself pursued
by a Raiders of the Lost Ark-style old Nazi (Roden) desperate to
nab the uber-trinket.
It’s painful to see such a talented screen comic actor as Scott – priceless
in the American Pie
pictures and Dude Where’s
My Car – looking such a fish out of water as he does here. Though
he’s visibly bulked himself up in a strenuous attempt to crack the action
genre, this material – with its clunky dialogue and half-baked attempts
at humour - simply doesn’t play to his strengths, and he ends up seeming
like just another faceless pretty-boy from the Hollywood production line.
Even Chow looks less than comfortable – not so much with the action stuff (which
he can manage in his sleep) as with the shamelessly corny ‘fortune-cookie
philosophy’ he’s forced to spout: “Rich manure can fertilise fields and
feed millions,” he informs a skeptical Kar at one point. Bulletproof
Monk is, unfortunately, anything but rich manure - ineptly
plotted, choppily edited, clumsily directed, and weighed down with woefully
unconvincing FX-heavy fight sequences, “Bullshit Monk” would
have been a more accurate, if less catchy, label.
14th April, 2003
(seen 10th April, Odeon Gate, Newcastle)
by Neil
Young
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