There are some movies that put every good moment they have in the trailer. Other films put a few good moments in the trailer save the rest for the actual film. I was hoping that "War" would fall into the latter category. Before I sat down to see "War", I knew that for this film to be good, it needed to have four things (all of which were teased in the trailer). One: Jason Statham kicking butt. Two: Jet Li kicking butt. Three: Awesome action in the form of explosions, gunfights, swordfights, and (most importantly) martial arts. Four: Jet Li and Jason Statham duking it out. If it lacked any of those, the film would suck from its own unrealized potential. Fortunately, "War" fully lives up to its potential in every way and it even delivers a pretty cool story as well (I never said I was expecting that).
The narrative follows Statham's character of Jack Crawford, an FBI agent assigned to San Francisco's Asian Organized Crime unit. Does such a unit exist? I don't know. My gut says probably not. But it didn't interfere with my enjoyment of the film, so I can't complain.
Anyway, Jack's friend and partner, Tom Lone gets killed (along with his wife and daughter) after he saves Jack's life (by shooting "Rogue", a skilled Yakuza hit man) during a gang war shootout. Cut to three years later when Jack arrives on a crime scene and finds evidence that Rogue is back. The film then becomes a modern day "Yojimbo" (or if you prefer, "A Fistful of Dollars") with Jet Li's character, Rogue, in the Toshiro Mifune (or Clint Eastwood) role. Only this time, the audience is viewing it from Jack's (and the other FBI agents') perspective as they try to catch and/or kill Rogue for all the crap that he's done.
However, as cool as that story is, the film is not perfect. It has a definite weak spot. That weak spot is the dialog. Overall, it worked and helped progress the story (like it should) but there were several lines of dialog used throughout "War" that everyone has heard dozens of times before in numerous other action films. Some were so overly explanatory, that I practically rolled my eyes when I heard them. Thankfully, these verbal glitches didn't overwhelm the plot.
While the film had room for improvement in regards to writing, the acting performances were top notch. Both Li and Statham are magnetic. Every moment that they're onscreen is mesmerizing. In fact, there's not a single bad performance in the entire cast. Sure, some of them have to deal with the aforementioned cheesy lines, but they do everything they can to sell the lines. And they succeed.
In short, "War" rocked. Jet Li and Jason Statham came together and gave us an awesome flick that they should both be proud of. I will definitely be adding this to my DVD collection when it's released. It's a great action film with a cool story that delivered on all of its promises from the trailers (and then some). What more could you ask for?
