|
 on't let the cover of the Hong Kong movie "Running
Out of Time" fool you. The film, about a dying man (Andy Lau) who
challenges a brilliant cop (Ching Wan Lau) to catch him as he sets about
avenging an old score, is more comedy than police drama. "Time" stars
prolific actor/pop idol/all-around-swell-guy Andy Lau ("Dance
of a Dream") as Cheung, the dying man in question, who decides he wants
to play a game with the singleminded Inspector Ho. As we later come to learn,
the game is really just Cheung's way of getting Ho to help him bring a mob boss
to justice.
If "Running Out of Time" breaks the standard Hong
Kong mold it's that the film is, for the most part, very clever. The
almost-too-clever-for-its-own-good screenplay is the work of collaborators
Julien Carbon and Laurent Courtiaud, who also worked together on "Black
Mask 2"; the third screenwriter is Nai-Hoi Yau, who was also
responsible for the highly unpredictable "Expect
the Unexpected." The trio brings a fresh voice to Hong Kong cinema that
I haven't seen in a while.
For its first 40-odd minutes we are led to believe that
top-billed Andy Lau will be our chief villain; as it turns out, he's only one
half in what is essentially a Buddy Film. The other half of the buddy factor is
Ching Wan Lau ("Expect
the Unexpected"), whose Inspector Ho is a cross between Sherlock Holmes
and a bored traffic cop. Not only does Ho not carry a gun, but he likes to let
his mouth, in conjunction with his brains, do all the police work for him. When
we first meet Ho, he's singlehandedly talking bank robbers holed up in a bank
with hostages into shooting each other. The guy is that good.
A major source of irritant in Ho's life is Chief Inspector
Wong (Shiu Hung Hui), who also provides the film's running comedy. Wong is so
obscenely stupid that he's nothing more than a caricature, and we're obviously
not meant to take him seriously. True to form, Wong is a joke from beginning to
end. Besides the fact that Ho can't stand Wong's lack of intelligence, the
Inspector never misses an opportunity to insult his superior, much to the
latter's consternation.
The direction by Johnnie To ("Full-Time
Killer") is pretty standard. There are a couple of flashy sequences,
but on the whole the film doesn't seem to be stretching itself thin with style.
It's a workmanlike film, and To seems content to let the well thought-out script
and his two charismatic leads do all the work, which is always a good thing
especially when you have materials like these to work with. A lesser director
would have tried to make himself "seen" against the material. To
deserves credit for resisting that urge.
While most of the background players go by in a blur of
insignificance, of note is YoYo Mung who shows up in a couple of brief scenes
involving Cheung and buses. The cops in Ho's squad have no personality to speak
off, and even the main villain, who goes by the unlikely name of
"Baldy" (Waise Lee), gets no character development at all. Actually,
Baldy's idiot henchman, who goes by the unlikely name of "Baldy's
Mustachioed Flunky" (Suet Lam), has more personality than his boss.
The truth is, the interaction between Ching Wan Lau and
Andy Lau (no relation) is the real treat of "Running Out of Time."
Even Cheung's revenge scheme, for what it's worth, is not nearly enough to hold
our attention when it's revealed. The screenwriters did the right thing to bury
much of Cheung's motivations for the elaborate revenge plot into the background,
and leaving Cheung and Ho's cat and mouse game in the forefront.
Both Laus do terrific jobs, even if some of the situations
that they find (or to be more precise, put) themselves in are more than just a
little unlikely. The two men are charming and highly likeable, and although
their individual talents (not to mention their schemes and scenarios) are
completely unbelievable, they manage to sell it just enough for us to believe.
Also, we're told that Cheung has some sort of cancer and only has a couple of
weeks to live, but apparently this doesn't prevent him from scaling ventilation
shafts and going mano-a-mano with cops.
"Running Out of Time" works best as a comedy.
Ho's constant scolding of bumbling Chief Inspector Wong is sometimes a little
much for cops of their individual rank, but it's really hard to fault the
screenwriters for pushing this element when it's so bloody funny. I guess it's
hard to ignore comedy gold when one shows itself. "Time" has a lot of
laughs, and a nicely paced running length and a clever screenplay doesn't hurt
at all.
|
