Director: Renny Harlan
Year: 1996
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Action
Plot:
Living in a small town, an amnesiac woman tries to live her life as a regular mom to her kids and husband, as a series of strange incidents start to trigger a need to investigate her past life. As these incidents bring about a series of clues to her past life as a ruthless government assassin, it forces her to turn to a stranger for help which fully inserts them into a ploy by the government to silence the two of them and forces them on the run to stay alive and expose their secretive agenda.
Review:
There was a lot to like here for the most part. Among the better features here comes from the immensely enjoyable evolution of her skillset that comes about through a nicely logical series of events that bring it about. With everything already set up to showcase how she's going through the typical stages of memory loss in her relationships with her husband and daughter, the few incidents that chip away at that including the use of tools or weapons she normally wouldn't know how to operate or the sudden outbursts of behavior that don't highlight how she usually acts set this in motion in a fun manner. The meet-ups with the agent who tries to help her adds even more to this setup, especially with how comedic their interactions are the more they're around each other as the revelations that come about letting everything come together involving the reveal about her past working as a government assassin and the work trying to silence her before she fully remembers everything. This brings about a series of explosive confrontations involving the set of high-energy shootouts, car chases, and brutal beatdowns that prove quite exhilarating with how much punishment they take while still charging forward against the ruthless agents they're supposed to take out to give everything the kind of explosive setup this one needs.
Outside of that, the main issue here is that so much of the action tends to run into the rarified matter of being too unbelievable to take seriously. While there are plenty of exciting moments to be had with how the explosive shots and stunts come to play out, they do verge into the more over-the-top nature that can be somewhat hard to fully immerse in. With the explosions going off as they do and coming as close as they do to the characters at select points, there's a real sense of danger that comes about due to the frenetic nature of everything, yet that highlights how odd it is that they survive without taking as much damage as they should. These get larger and more elaborate as the film goes on, with the main sequence on the bridge being the biggest example of how the scenes drop into the cheesy realm, with how they come about and make for a somewhat difficult time to get into the film. The other issue here is the confrontational tone that keeps the film's first half at arm's length away from the rest of the cheesy, over-the-top second half, where all the jokes and quips coming about are at odds with the more action-heavy second half that follows. It's not truly detrimental, but it does have enough points here to keep it down.
Overview: ****/5
A rather fun and exciting Action effort in most regards, this one comes across best as a mindless, semi-comedic Action film without looking too much at how improbable everything comes across as. Those who are fine with the approach taken here, aren't bothered by the flaws on display, or are fans of the creative crew will have the most to like here while most others out there might want to heed caution.
Comments
Post a Comment