Maddeningly pointless violence is what killed off martial arts movies in the 1980s. Bruce Lee, it cannot be argued, is the singular individual who opened our eyes to the beauty of martial arts with his movies in the early 1970s. Bruce Lee's stories, unlike those in the same genre that followed him, would have a slow build-up to a great fight towards the end of the movie. This is why his movies remain the standard of great martial arts movies to this day. The fate of subsequent generation of martial arts movies lavishly crowded with violence is now threatening Hollywood productions because of gratuitous depiction of violence.
Take a step back and consider both the first and second parts of the Godfather trilogy, arguably the best storyline ever put into film! What makes The Godfather so appealing is its depiction of implied, rather than expressed, violence. Truly! The director, Francis Ford Coppola, would later disclose that he and the script writer, Mario Puzo, were under tremendous pressure from the producers of the first movie to add more violence to the script or he, Coppola, risked being fired from completing the directing the movie. Those who have read the original novel by Puzo would agree that the book on which the story was based is much more suspenseful and entertaining than the movie even with less violence.
So it is that a great movie is not so much about the amount of TNT, pyrotechnics, blood and gore that are freely depicted but much more about the story of ordinary guys, in this case crooks and law enforcers, whose actions and plots are motivated by the mundane things in life that we can all relate to such as strained interpersonal relationships, debts, deadlines, job insecurity (as in the case of the two police officers in this story),etc. which make up the story - a great story, in my opinion.
To me this is a great movie told with measured and tamed violence. Granted that the story it aimed to tell should have been accompanied by other parallel stories criss-crossing the main plot over an added 30 minutes or so because at approximately 90 it came up too short for a good time frame.
The cast is great (Dennis Hopper, Seymour Cassel, Lolita Davidovich, Viggo Mortensen and, of course,Wesley Snipes who radically departs from the portrait of the apostle of gore like in the Blade trilogy earlier. The character played by Mr. Snipes is one we can all relate to and, thus, immerse ourselves in the story for maximum entertaining pleasure. Each one of the listed actors gave a better-than-average performance to make this movie one I expect to watch a few more times.
The soundtrack is great.
Take a step back and consider both the first and second parts of the Godfather trilogy, arguably the best storyline ever put into film! What makes The Godfather so appealing is its depiction of implied, rather than expressed, violence. Truly! The director, Francis Ford Coppola, would later disclose that he and the script writer, Mario Puzo, were under tremendous pressure from the producers of the first movie to add more violence to the script or he, Coppola, risked being fired from completing the directing the movie. Those who have read the original novel by Puzo would agree that the book on which the story was based is much more suspenseful and entertaining than the movie even with less violence.
So it is that a great movie is not so much about the amount of TNT, pyrotechnics, blood and gore that are freely depicted but much more about the story of ordinary guys, in this case crooks and law enforcers, whose actions and plots are motivated by the mundane things in life that we can all relate to such as strained interpersonal relationships, debts, deadlines, job insecurity (as in the case of the two police officers in this story),etc. which make up the story - a great story, in my opinion.
To me this is a great movie told with measured and tamed violence. Granted that the story it aimed to tell should have been accompanied by other parallel stories criss-crossing the main plot over an added 30 minutes or so because at approximately 90 it came up too short for a good time frame.
The cast is great (Dennis Hopper, Seymour Cassel, Lolita Davidovich, Viggo Mortensen and, of course,Wesley Snipes who radically departs from the portrait of the apostle of gore like in the Blade trilogy earlier. The character played by Mr. Snipes is one we can all relate to and, thus, immerse ourselves in the story for maximum entertaining pleasure. Each one of the listed actors gave a better-than-average performance to make this movie one I expect to watch a few more times.
The soundtrack is great.
