Wrong around the collar

1 1/2

I know that movies are not real life and that things happen in them, which are not possible or plausible. I also know that some stories have the consistency of homogenized two percent milk. Milk case in point, “Unleashed.”

I don’t know how this script got written. I’m not even going to look it up. However this story evolved, it feels very “boardroom” to me. That’s where a bunch of executives sit around in a room tweaking an otherwise good premise until it resembles enough other pictures and genres to warrant a release. When they finally get bored, they leave the room and “Voila!” you have another mediocre movie!

Jet Li stars along with Bob Hoskins and Morgan Freeman in tale of torture, tedium and flying fists. Hoskins is a bulldog of a loan shark in modern-day England whose unique brand of enforcement shuffles along behind him with hunched shoulders and his head hanging down. He stands docile in a collar that looks like a special clamp off the space shuttle until Hoskins realizes he’s not getting his money.

The collar comes off and Li goes ballistic beating the tar out of everyone in the room. The collar goes back on and Li returns to meekness, a brow beaten, caged animal kept in the dark about real life, both his and everyone else’s.

This dynamic, as disturbing as it might be, had the potential to really grab an audience and take it for a trip to Strangetown. Unfortunately, it detours to Lamesville.

Morgan Freeman plays a very Morgan Freeman-like character, a blind piano tuner who discovers and eventually rescues Jet Li from his hellhole. Too bad he couldn’t rescue him from this movie. Freeman is fatherly, loving, charitable, trustworthy, and completely overbearing in his role. I couldn’t wait for Hoskins to show up again to give this picture the meager drop or two of menace it possessed. I think Ian Holm would have been far superior in the Freeman role. Maybe it’s just me, but I am just about Morgan Freeman-ed out!

As for the rest of the story, a silly tacked on side plot involving an underground death match society or guild or something rears its ugly hackneyed head for a few cheap thrills. Very cheap and very idiotic. Is this the best these filmmakers could come up with?

The movie itself has some style due to some gritty cinematography and a very cool soundtrack by Massive Attack. Other than that, this is a silly, sappy excuse for a few fists of fury. Say that real fast three times!

This is my other big complaint about “Unleashed.” The fight scenes come off as so much choreography. Jet Li bounces off of people’s chests and faces like he’s on Broadway. There’s no power to his punches. I should be wincing when he slams into someone, not going, “That looked fake.” I got bored with all the thrust and parry involved with each altercation. I thought, “Yeah, yeah, we get it. Your hands are lethal weapons and you move really fast.” Amazing how much energy Li had in this movie with his character subsisting on tin cans of unnamed goo. I’m thinking, “Throw the kid a protein bar or something. He’s hungry!”

The other factor that wasn’t so much touching as it was dumb was the whole piano motif. Freeman spits out platitudes plucked from his years of finding middle C. His daughter studies piano and unveils the Mozart sonata that unlocks Jet Li’s memory of a mother who played piano. The movie ends triumphantly with a piano recital. Li and Freeman sit in the balcony in their tuxes applauding politely, the pride beaming from their faces. Somehow I knew the movie was nearly over. Walking out of the theatre I thought to myself, “What was that all about?”

It was about ninety minutes I will never get back.