Thoughts on The Replacement Killers

 

via Giphy/Courtesy Columbia/Sony

"'If I say the lenses love me,' he says without trace of arrogance, 'it will sound bad. But it must be so.'"

-- Chow Yun-fat, profiled by Stephen Hunter, Washington Post

The making of The Replacement Killers would make a better movie than what was released. 

Antoine Fuqua, acclaimed for his music videos, directing his first feature film. Last year, he said making Killers taught him what type of experience he never again wants to have. "You learn ("studio world" movies are) a business." I see that Antoine's worked steadily since 1998, so evidently an acceptable working standard was reached. Mira Sorvino, who made Killers both because she wanted to and because then-boyfriend Quentin Tarantino urged her to, fairly openly described off-camera frustrations to the A.V. Club in 2011. "It's just sometimes (emerging directors are) not really allowed, at the earlier stages of their career, to bring the fullness of their imagination to the project, because studios are very, very nervous about what they're doing." We now know Mira was a MeToo victim and had her career jeopardized because of this. It's not impossible to suggest that she recognized the similarities in how Antoine was being undermined.

Finally, we've got co-producer and action choreographer John Woo and his protege, Chow Yun-fat. Killers, Hunter wrote, "has been precisely engineered to deliver (Chow) to the pinnacle of American stardom ... (the title) suggests that Chow is the replacement killer, and the killers he's replacing are named Arnold, Clint, Bruce and the rest." For the moment, Jackie Chan "remains irrevocably locked in the martial arts genre." But Chow, he had the chance to crossover, just by playing "a man he's played so many times before, the 'good' killer." Chow, like Mira, was influenced by an auteur. "(Woo) saw something in me that the audiences liked. Now he is like a god to me. If he says do it, I do it." It's amazing. The studio system was long-dead by the time Killers was made, but when you read Antoine, Mira and Chow's comments (granted, from three unique periods of time), you can practically plug them into The Bad and the Beautiful or The Barefoot Contessa. Oh, and another of the executive producers? Terence Chang, Chow's then-manager. That's showbiz, kids (and now I want to read more about the production of Bulletproof Monk and especially Red Cliff).

"I wanna know what the hell is going on."

"All I ever wanted was for my family to be safe. I would do anything to protect them. Anything. Mr. Wei used my mother and sister to persuade me to do three jobs. The first two were criminals. It wasn't difficult."

"What happened with the third?"

"I couldn't do it. *reloads gun, looks at family snapshot* If I don't get back to China, my family will die."

While I'm still more interested in the backstage goings-on, I will admit that Killers is pretty engaging and moves at a good pace. I think Sanzel, previously an undercover cop in New York, shouldn't distance himself from the end results. John Lee (Chow) is on the shit list of Wei (Kenneth Tsang), who recently lost his son to Zedkov (Michael Rooker) of the L.A.P.D. Halfway through, we learn Wei was planning to take an eye for an eye. John was supposed to kill seven-year-old Stevie Zedkov (Andrew J. Marton). The boy's now fair game for the actual replacement killers, Ryker (Til Schweiger) and Collins (Danny Trejo). Meg the forger (Mira) got to remain John's accomplice in saving Stevie and taking down Wei, et al., but by the time Killers was released, she lost an actually less-than-key element of her character. Test audiences supposedly got the John-Meg romance cut to just suggested -- their last scene is practically demanding a kiss -- but it's hardly juicy to talk about test audiences, is it? Peter Travers: "There have been rumors of off screen tension between Sorvino and Chow; whatever the reason, romantic sparks between the two fail to materialize."

Ryker and Collins are more evil, having no problems with killing anyone who gets in their way (R.I.P., blonde woman just backing her minivan out of a parking space), and Wei is willing to put a hit on a little boy, but for whatever reason, I most anticipated Kogan (Jürgen Prochnow) getting his. It's part of the grand finale, which paled in comparison to the shootout sequences at Meg's office and Eddie's car wash. Eddie (Frank Medrano) is one of several pretty effective supporting characters. I wouldn't necessarily want to see a movie about him, Zedkov's fellow detective (Carlos Gomez), Alan the Buddhist monk (Randall Duk Kim) or Kogan, but I felt all of them had meaning in the story, that they weren't just people to be put in danger.

I'm wrestling with my grade here. Like with Great Expectations, there are elements of The Replacement Killers that make me want to recommend the movie. But I can also sense the compromises and the overall lack of uniqueness. Of the stars, Chow comes off better than Mira. A little more wit wouldn't have hurt.

"Swindle, bad checks, mail fraud. No heavy felonies here. Still, what you lack in weight you make up for in volume. Twelve arrests before your sweet sixteen. It's a little unusual for a girl of that age to be in that much trouble, don't you think?"

"Well, I've always considered myself a feminist pioneer."

Recommended with reservations.

Thoughts:

-- "Old boyfriend?" "I try to stick to my own species."

-- Box Office: Grossing $19.2 million domestically on a $30 million budget, this opened at No. 2 and came in at No. 90 for 1998. According to Leonard Klady, Variety, the movie opened early in the Far East and was considered a disappointment.

-- Critic's Corner: "Unlikely to establish Mr. Chow as an American action-adventure hero," Stephen Holden wrote for The New York Times. Kenneth Turan was equally blunt when it came to Fuqua and Woo. "Some films create heroes, while others are content to worship them. As starry-eyed as it is stylish, The Replacement Killers opts for adoration all the way." "Roger Ebert: "In a movie like this, the story is simply a device to help us tell the beginning from the end." "Porno for the non-discriminating gun nut," Rita Kempley declared. "Adolescents are too grown up for this blasted nonsense."

-- Hey, It's the Late '90s!: Turan, quoting Premiere, described Antoine, Simon West (Con Air) and Michael Bay (The Rock and, of course, the upcoming Armageddon) as members of the "Bold and Brash and Love to Blow Things Up" fraternity of guys who went from directing music videos to action films. Antoine, at least, was called "the most visually gifted of the group." Desson Howe also appraised the state of the art: "As soon as Woo and Chow feel comfortable enough to raise their standards about the bottom-feeding level of (Steven) Seagal and company, the action world will be theirs."

-- Hey, It's ...!: The Ennis House and Clifton Collins, Jr. (as Loco, who fails to pick up Meg).

-- Fanservice Junction: Meg is seen changing her clothes when she gets back from facing Zedkov.

-- "Checkmate."

-- Next: Sphere. On deck: The Wedding Singer.