CORPORATE LINE: Martial arts superstar Jet Li reteams with French writer-director Luc Besson (KISS OF THE DRAGON) in this psychological action film shot in Glasgow, Scotland. Li stars as Danny, a human attack dog for a powerful mobster he calls Uncle Bart (Bob Hoskins, looking resplendent in white suit after white suit). When Bart and his men go out on their collection runs, they bring Danny, who has been trained since he was a child to fight to kill. When Bart takes Danny’s collar off and commands, “Get ‘im,” Danny goes to work, an unstoppable machine, using the only weapon he knows: his body. But when a turf war ends up in bloody carnage, Danny escapes and is taken in by a kind family consisting of blind piano tuner Sam (Morgan Freeman) and his teenage stepdaughter, Victoria (Kerry Condon). They teach Danny how to be a real person, to be able to act civilly in society. They also allow Danny to explore his love of the piano, where a specific tune haunts him, bringing up repressed memories from his long-ago past. Just when Danny thinks he has escaped from his former life, he is pulled back in, but he is no longer the trained dog Bart thinks he is. Written by Besson and directed by Louis Letterier (THE TRANSPORTER), UNLEASHED is a gripping, heart-wrenching film fueled by the music of Massive Attack and a relentless visual style. And having taken acting lessons for the first time in his career, Li more than holds his own in the presence of such masters as Hoskins and Freeman.
THE GOOD: Every time Jet Li’s fist fly its impossible not to sit on the edge of your seat as each kick and punch hits their mark. Since coming to America Li has given into the high-flying Matrix-style fight scenes; thankfully Unleashed doesn’t have strings attached—even though the fight choreographer is The Matrix’s own Yuen Wo Ping. Li doesn’t need to leave the ground as he rips through everyone in his path. That’s until his collar is put back on.
THE BAD: Unfortunately, when the collar is on the movie gets collared, too. Unleashed feels like two separate films. One is where Li breaks skulls and the other where he learns love. Certainly these two halves could have come together but don’t and it’s not entirely obvious why. Perhaps it’s because we don’t bond with his new family. It may also be we don’t believe this killer could become this tender man in a Frankenstein sort of way.
What problem throughout is the way a blind Morgan Freeman takes in Danny without knowing him and doesn’t mind leaving his step-daughter alone with him. Even worse Danny arrives bleeding and Freeman never asks a question—instead we get lame dialogue to write it off. Li is over forty and an eighteen year old girl finds him cute and wants to have a relationship with him. There are a lot of issues throughout.
THE EXTRAS:
“The Collar Comes Off” is a behind the scenes featurette that is narrated by Morgan Freeman. The most interesting aspects are looking at the of the stunt choreography. “Serve No Master” seems to cover much of the same ground—the difference is the interviews with the cast.
There is a short interview with Director Louis Leterrier and a video for the soundtrack song “Unleash Me.”
FRANKLY: More fighting and less tender moments would have made Unleashed a brilliant film. What would have been even more enjoyable was more of the fights to the death and truly unleashing Li.
+ Charlie Craine
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