Unleashed: non-stop martial arts action? Not quite, but that's certainly not a bad thing. The new Jet Li movie as advertised seems like your typical martial arts action affair, but it's more than that. It has what seems to be a storyline -- shocking I know. The movie follows the main character Danny (Li) who has pretty much been brained washed since a young age to be the attack dog for Bart (Hoskins). Bart of Uncle Bart as he refers to himself uses Danny as a enforcer while he collects money from local businesses and later enters Danny into death match fights for large sums of money. Danny who as I said was brainwashed to be an emotionless killer wears a collar which when taken off unleashes the killer in him.
The story takes off when Bart and Danny get in a "car accident" which leaves Bart in the hospital and Danny on the streets where he runs into a blind piano tuner named Sam (Freeman). Yes that does sound a bit weird. Sam takes Danny into his home and with the care and nurturing of Sam and his daughter Victoria they make a real person out of him. However Danny's past comes back to get him, when Bart wants Danny back as his enforcer.
The first thing anyone will ask about this movie is how the fight scenes are and let me tell you they are amazing. Jet Li can really move and the scenes are shot in a very basic way, but one which really accents the fighting and allows you to pay close attention to it. There aren't a whole lot of fight scenes in the movie as they try for more then senseless violence (go figure), but the scenes that are filmed are great to watch and give you a real sense of the brutality involved.
So if the fight scenes aren't the focus of Unleashed then what is and was it worth it? For Unleashed, writer Luc Besson tried to focus more on the forming of the relationship between Danny, Sam and Victoria. This forming of a relationship is pretty good and Freeman and Li gave some pretty good performances, but parts of the storyline in general just seemed way too coincidental for my liking. I don't want to give away certain elements of the story, but if you think about all the story elements it seems way too accidental that these people would meet up.
Anywho, I think that fact that things are too planned out in terms of the storyline detracts a bit from the overall story, at least in my mind. In terms of acting Jet Li really gave a very genuine performance and shows that he can not only fight extremely well, but perhaps even act! Bob Hoskins who plays Bart also gives a good performance; you really get a good sense of the ruthlessness and cruelness that he represents.
Unleashed overall was a big surprise in my book; I was like most expecting a lot of fight scenes paused only momentarily for some half-assed attempt at a storyline, but it's not the case here. There was some thought put into the film and it shows. The story has it's shortcomings in my opinion, but it's much better than most of your action films as it's more of a drama than anything. Unleashed is borderline as to being worth the $9.50 I paid for admission, but at the very least is worth a rental.
"Unleashed" opens May 13, 2005 and is rated R. Action. Directed by Louis Leterrier. Written by Luc Besson. Starring Bob Hoskins, Jet Li, Morgan Freeman.
