Both Jet Li and Jason Statham have been in some great movies. They’ve also each been in some really terrible movies. Their individual performances are always good, but they just seem to have a habit of signing on to movies with weak scripts. Apparently, when you put the two in a movie together the chances of a weak plot are increased exponentially.

The character’s in this movie are one dimensional on a level that I almost expect there is some previous version of “War: starring Jean- Claude Van Damme and Steven Seagal” that has been sitting on a shelf somewhere since the late 80s. Agent Crawford (Statham) seems like he’s never had a good day in his life. He yells or grunts everything…EVERYTHING. Rogue (Li) is cool to the point of being soulless, which would be all right if there weren’t a small set of scenes that attempt to make him seem more human. Jet Li fumbles through these scenes as though he doesn’t understand how they relate to the character…because they pretty much don’t.

The movie starts out with a pretty basic cliche premise: An FBI agent’s partner is murdered, and he’s sure it was done by an elite assassin named Rogue. We then insert Jason Statham as the cookie-cutter FBI agent, and Jet Li as the way too bad ass assassin (try and say that three times fast). And then they fight, right? Well, not exactly.

Essentially, it all boils down to Jason Statham wants to get Rogue, and Rogue really couldn’t give a shit. Rogue is just doing his own thing, and Jason Statham is always a few steps behind. There really is very little significant interaction between the two, which makes both the beginning and the “surprise” ending pretty pointless.

I guess I should play nice and not give away the “twist”, but its so obvious that if you’ve seen any action movie made in the 80’s you’ll pretty much have it figured out in the first ten minutes. At that point I’d say flip a coin and if it comes up heads go buy popcorn, and if it comes up tails just leave.

I can honestly say I’m very tired of movies trying to hit me with a twist, especially if that twist does nothing but destroy the credibility of the characters. Both the writers in this film are first timers, and to their credit the bulk of the middle of the movie is reasonably well written. It’s a straight forward Yakuza movie, with a lot of cool fights, surprise traps, and gun battles. It’s only in the beginning and end that it sorta forgets the point of the characters and tries to hit you with a series of pointless twists.

Phillip G. Atwell, is also essentially a first timer, with this being is big screen debut as director. Along the same lines of the writing, the bulk of the middle is a well shot, well directed Yakuza movie. It’s a very straight forward action flick about a really cool assassin getting the best of two warring gangs. But where a more experienced director would have made an attempt to downplay the twist elements, Atwell chooses instead to beat you over the head with flashbacks as if to scream “See! Look Stupid! Do you get it?!? Let’s flashback one more time…I don’t think you get it”.

I can certainly watch a “dumb” action movie that’s just shooting, fighting, and crazy stunts. But I don’t like it when the movie treats me like I’m an idiot.