|
 ike
most of Wesley Snipes' Shot-in-Romania action
movies, there's absolutely nothing wrong with
"The Detonator". Unfortunately there's
also nothing particular great about it, either.
It's a middling effort from Snipes, former star of
Grade-A Hollywood pictures like the
"Blade" series, being neither good
enough to grab anyone's attention, nor awful
enough to be ridiculed endlessly in reviews such
as this. In short, it's what Snipes' career has
come to be, the first hint of ruin being "Blade:
Trinity", where the starring part (by
Snipes) was reduced to a lengthy cameo in favor of
the studio whoring out Jessica Biel and Ryan
Reynolds' perfectly sculpted abs in hopes of a
spin-off series.
Directed by former
Hong Kong
man Po-Chih Leong, "The Detonator" stars
Snipes as a Homeland Security agent who finds
himself in
Romania
negotiating an arms deal with Romanian gangsters.
(In a bit of comedy, Snipes' character is
pretending to be gay, although why is never
explained, probably because it just didn't make
any sense.) The deal goes bad (as they always do
in these movies) and Snipes, after killing a bunch
of people, is arrested. Luckily for our secret
agent, the local CIA branch, and in particular
former buddy Michael Shepard (William Hope) has a
job for him -- escort beaudacious witness Nadia
Cominski (Silvia Colloca) back to
New York
for the murder of her husband. Unfortunately for
the bodyguard and the guarded, a Romanian gangster
wants Nadia, and the CIA is infested with traitors
(as they always are in these movies).
"The Detonator" was
written by Martin Wheeler, who last scripted
another Snipes Romanian actionfest called "7
Seconds", and who will be once again
teaming up with the Ponytail One in 2007's
"Enemy of the Unseen". Yes, I realize
that the title makes no sense, but then again,
since when has the title of a Steven Seagal movie
made sense, ever? But I digress. Wheeler pens
"The Detonator" the same way he penned
"7 Seconds" and the Seagal starrer
"Black
Dawn" -- full of CIA backstabbings,
starring a male hero and his pretty female
partner, a lot of running and chasing, random
shootings, controlled local explosions, and
generic car chases. Wheeler clearly writes his
movies to conform to the location and resources at
hand, and in that respect he's doing exactly what
producer Andrew Stevens demands of him.
And because action in
Romania
is cheap to do, there is of course a lot of action
in "The Detonator", albeit all of them
of the "low-level" variety. Wesley
Snipes, as his characters in these movies are wont
to do, dispense the bad guys in a series of
unspectacular action sequences. None of it will
make you go "Wow", as that would require
originality and a bigger budget than what they had
to work with here. Director Po-Chih Leong does a
fairly good job of orchestrating the mindless
explosions and gunfights, but then again, this is
by-the-numbers stuff, so it would take a Herculean
effort to screw things up.
Curiously, there are a number
of scenes where the appearance of Silvia Colloca
as witness Nadia are accompanied by elaborate
Celtic music. I'm not entirely sure what Leong and
company were going for here, as although she's an
attractive woman, Nadia doesn't seem to merit such
grandiose entrances -- more than once, in fact.
Silvia Colloca, graduating from a bit part in
"Van
Helsing", does a competent enough job,
especially working across Snipes, who has done so
many of these movies, with such similar
storylines, that he probably gets bored with the
project by the halfway point, and can you really
blame him? The guy must get déjà vu constantly
on the movie set.
It's hard to tell the
difference between a Wesley Snipes and a Steven
Seagal movie nowadays, especially since they're
directed, written, and produced by the same group
of men. I'm willing to bet producer Andrew Stevens
picks his stars by whoever is available to run
over to
Romania
to shoot the script that particular week. Of
course it probably helps that Snipes and Seagal
don't seem particularly bothered by the dwindling
qualities of their movies, or seem to notice that
their movies keep either being set in, or shot in,
Romania
. Whatever happened to the good ol days when you
could just drive up north and shoot all your
movies in
Canada
? It's kind of hard to pretend the back alleys of
Bucharest is New York, which easily explains why
all of Snipes and Seagal's movies now involves
Eastern European bad guys and globe-trotting CIA
(or in Seagal's case, ex-CIA) agents.
Without belaboring the point,
"The Detonator" is an average effort,
with only the supporting actors giving the project
what can be called their all. Silvia Colloca has
the makings of a talented leading lady, and
William Hope is quite good as the CIA spook trying
to lend Wesley Snipes a hand. Alas, "The
Detonator" just doesn't have it in itself to
be anything but okay. Like a Seagal movie, you're
just happy if the leading man can still convince
you he can beat people up without having a stroke
midway through. Snipes can still do that, so
that's an extra .5 brownie points right there,
giving "The Detonator" a whopping total
of 2.5.
Hey, it could be worst. Lots.
|
