One out of
Five stars
Running time:
110 mins
Badly plotted, poorly directed action flick – it's no surprise this wasn't shown to critics before its release.
What's it all about?
Jason Statham plays FBI Agent Jack Crawford, whose partner is brutally murdered by a mysterious assassin known only as Rogue (Jet Li). Crawford spends three years obsessively trying to find Rogue, but only loses his wife (Andrea Roth) in the process.
When Rogue finally reappears, Crawford is determined to catch him, even if it means getting caught up in a gang war between two rival Triad factions. But is Rogue everything he seems? And who, exactly, is he working for?
The Good
Aside from the always excellent Luis Guzman and better-than-the-film-deserves support from Andrea Roth (essentially playing the same role as she does in TV's Rescue Me), the film's only selling point comes at the end with a climactic sword fight and then a punch-up between Li and Statham. However, by this time, you'll have long ceased to care, as the preceding 100 minutes or so are extremely dull and surprisingly low on decent action sequences or fight scenes.
The Bad
War has so many problems that it's difficult to know where to start - its biggest problem is that there's too much plot and not enough action. In addition, a large amount of the action just consists of various Triads shooting at each other and it's impossible to tell who's shooting at who: in essence, the first 90 minutes or so can be reduced to plot, plot, plot, bang bang bang, plot, plot, plot.
Statham has redeemed himself of late in films such as Crank and the Transporter franchise, but here he's back to his wooden, shouty self, although much of that is the script's fault, which doesn't even give him any decent one-liners to work with. Jet Li's acting is pretty bad too and his high squeaky voice only serves to induce unintentional giggling.
Worth seeing?
In short, War is an entirely missable action flick that should have gone straight to DVD. Go and watch The Bourne Ultimatum again instead.