War (2007)

(In theaters, August 2007) The most remarkable thing about this film is how unremarkable it is. Despite action icons Jet Li and Jason Statham, this plodding police action film putters from one slight action scene to another, strictly going by the numbers until a whopper of a third-act twist comes along to boggle everyone’s minds. The problem, though, is that the film is so routine until then that the twist seems an act of desperation to fluff up a movie that deserved no such complications. More seriously, the twist also locks the film is a no-win logic from which there can be no satisfactory conclusion from the audience’s point of view. From hum-drum, War (whose title leads to much bigger expectations) becomes unpleasant. Which should be proof that Hollywood can, in fact, be too clever for its own good.