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all the viable action stars currently kicking ass and not taking names, Wesley
Snipes is probably the most enigmatic of the bunch. If not the man himself, then
at least the strange progression of his career. (Although Snipes' personal life
is also pretty interesting; didn't he once buy a patch of land in some podunk
town and built himself a bodyguard training camp?) Despite the continued
commercial success of the "Blade"
films, Snipes has nevertheless appeared in no less than four direct-to-video
features (not counting "7 Seconds", which puts the total at 5). How is
this possible, when the man continues to be a viable big screen action hero?
"7 Seconds" plucks Snipes out of
Hollywood big-budget films and drops him into Romania (aka the choice
location for filmmakers on a budget looking for ridiculous tax
incentives) as Jack Tuliver, an ex-Delta Force commando who makes a
living masterminding elaborate robberies. Jack's latest target is an
armored car company, but when a second gang shows up to ruin Jack's
getaway, our hero goes on the run with a mysterious briefcase containing
something everyone seems to want, while his girlfriend falls into the
clutches of the bad guys. Also along for the ride is NATO military cop
Kelly Anders (Tamzin Outhwaite), whose car is stolen by Jack as he flees
his would-be assassins. With the Romanian cops, Kelly and her military
police, and the bad guys all after him, Jack's got little place to run
and even fewer answers.
The first thing you'll notice about the first 30-40
minutes of "7 Seconds" is that director Simon Fellows
("Blessed") seems to be imitating the films of Steven
Soderbergh. "Out
of Sight" gets cribbed by way of Jack and Kelly's initial
meeting, and further followed-up on when Jack keeps calling Kelly back
using her cellphone to flirt. Meanwhile, there are more than a few nods
toward the "too cool for school" vibe that Soderbergh executes
with such effortlessness in his caper films. Curiously, Fellows seems to
abandon his cribbing of Soderbergh's style about halfway through,
leaving room for brutal fistfights and a lengthy gun battle in the bad
guy's mansion that goes on for way too long without the cops ever being
called to the scene, even in Romania.
The film offers up a couple of twists and turns,
but most of them are superfluous, and seems to have been added as an
attempt at visual flair. Further nodding to the filmmakers' needs to be
Soderbergh-esque, there are enough uses of flashbacks to convince you
"7 Seconds" would be about an hour long if not for the
constant flashbacking going on. It wouldn't be so bad if the flashbacks
only highlighted important plot points, but the filmmakers think the
audience is so dense that we need to see every single detail, as if we
were too dumb to grasp what they were talking about, even if it's the
most insignificant or mundane of "twists". I kid you not when
I say that "7 Seconds" might hold the record for the most
flashbacks in any movie ever.
Martin Wheeler's script does provide plenty of amusing
moments by way of running gags throughout the film. One involves Jack's
magical ability to end up on the wrong end of a gun, and the other has
Kelly driving around in her smashed up car for the rest of the film. The
movie's best asset is, without a doubt, star Wesley Snipes, who handles
the action just as well as the film's more lighthearted moments. Snipes
isn't in full "Blade" mode here, but his character is very
capable -- at least when the bad guys aren't getting the drop on him,
which seems to be quite often. Snipes gets to show off his martial arts
ability in plenty of scenes, but the gunfights tend to go on for too
long, especially the final shootout. Plus, the sound foley is atrocious
throughout much of the gunfights.
Of the
supporting cast, blonde beauty Tamzin Outhwaite has little to do except
background exposition, most of which becomes moot since Jack inevitably
learns the same things when various bad guys confess to him. As the
captured girlfriend, Georgina Rylance (who seems to be in just about
every American movie shot in Romania nowadays) has even less to do than
Outhwaite. The best of the lot is the character of Spanky, and even
though I don't understand 80% of the things the guy says, he's still
pretty funny throughout. The filmmakers should have made Spanky the
sidekick instead of keeping him taped to a chair through most of the
film.
In the end, "7 Seconds" is hindered by its
low budget, a slightly muddled script, and uninventive execution by the
director. Snipes is good, as he often is in these type of movies, but
there are times when even he seems to be performing well below his true
potential. My guess is that Snipes knows he's in a throwaway B-action
movie, and after a while simply adjusted accordingly. Having said that,
it's easy to see why "7 Seconds", despite the presence of a
still-hot action star, went straight to video. It simply doesn't belong
on the big screen.
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