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Shaw is an operative for the United Nations' covert dirty-tricks squad, using espionage and quasi-ethical tactics to secure peace and cooperation. When a shipping container full of dead ... See full summary »
When his mentor is taken captive, a retired member of Britain's Elite Special Air Service is forced into action. His mission: kill three assassins dispatched by their cunning leader.
Counter-terrorist Jack Quinn misses his target, Stavros, on the eve of his final mission. From there, he is sent to "The Colony", a rebirth for presumed-dead assassins. He breaks free from ... See full summary »
Director:
Hark Tsui
Stars:
Jean-Claude Van Damme,
Dennis Rodman,
Mickey Rourke
Jack Conrad is awaiting the death penalty in a corrupt Central American prison. He is "purchased" by a wealthy television producer and taken to a desolate island where he must fight to the death against nine other condemned killers from all corners of the world, with freedom going to the sole survivor.
Every seven years in an unsuspecting town, The Tournament takes place. A battle royale between 30 of the world's deadliest assassins. The last man standing receiving the $10,000,000 cash ... See full summary »
This story is about a freelance agent who is the courier of a package from France to Germany. He soon finds that many people want to get their hands on it.
Jonathan Ecks, an FBI agent, realizes that he must join with his lifelong enemy, Agent Sever, a rogue DIA agent with whom he is in mortal combat, in order to defeat a common enemy. That enemy has developed a "micro-device" that can be injected into victims in order to kill them at will. Written by
Uber Minion
Rotten Tomatoes list this film as #1 on their list of "The 100 Worst Reviewed Movies of All Time". See more »
Goofs
The small, metallic-blue car is undamaged after being hit by the bus and obviously crunched. See more »
Quotes
[first lines]
Agent Curtis:
Good evening Mrs. Gant.
Vinn:
What does my husband want now?
Agent Curtis:
The plan has changed. He is now available to spend time with Michael.
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Let's be honest with ourselves for a moment. In a movie like this, the producers don't pay expensive actors to act or to create realistic performances or to use their talents to win our sympathy. No, they pay these actors for face and name recognition, so when a movie like Ballistic: Banderas vs Liu comes along we don't have the inconvenience of learning about characters and plot. Hell, we don't even have the inconvenience of wondering, "Is this actor hot while all this excitement rushes them by?" Name recognition, baby, it's all marketed by name recognition.
And why should they let actors acting take up precious moments from the rooftop chases, the explosions, the gunfire, and posing like models? Everyone already knows these actors right? No need to develop anything more than flimsy excuses for action/motivation, right? Sarcasm aside - I never thought I'd hear myself say this, but I think Ballistic would have been a better, more sophisticated, film if they scrapped the plot and cliché character developments and just went for 90 minutes of uninterrupted Banderas and Liu gunning at each other backdropped by a slow-mo explosions.
This film would have to scale a cliff before reaching the level of plot intricacies and intelligence that just thrive in Michael Bay films.
We get a crappy plot and crappy characterizations anyway just in case we don't have a favorite actor to root for. We get ultra cliché scenarios that anyone who has been to a theatre in the last fifty years will pick up on. Oh no, a child's been kidnapped we're supposed to sympathize with the boy. There's the old (young?) has-been former cop (FBI guy in this movie) who lost his motivation we're supposed to sympathize with him and the loss of his family. And then there's--oh, but wait? What are these plot revelations? What are they pointing towards? Gasp! They're making the already obvious villain even more obvious! Me? I was rooting for the aliens from Independence Day to come down and blow them all up, but the bastards got stuck in traffic.
Somewhere in the movie is a subplot about a nano-assassin, but I cared about that as much as the movie does.
And since we're being honest, I admit this is a great film to watch after a night of provocative and cultured cinema to recalibrate your personal scale to the realities of the industry. Like I explained to the guy at Blockbuster, "I just got a box-set of Hitchcock, been watching those back to back, and the other day I watched De Palma's Femme Fatale. I need something trashy before I become a full-blown film snob." So I walked out with Ballistic and Shark Attack 3, went home, and turned off my mind for a marathon of stock footage and needless gunfire/explosions . . . and all was well.
69 of 74 people found this review helpful.
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Let's be honest with ourselves for a moment. In a movie like this, the producers don't pay expensive actors to act or to create realistic performances or to use their talents to win our sympathy. No, they pay these actors for face and name recognition, so when a movie like Ballistic: Banderas vs Liu comes along we don't have the inconvenience of learning about characters and plot. Hell, we don't even have the inconvenience of wondering, "Is this actor hot while all this excitement rushes them by?" Name recognition, baby, it's all marketed by name recognition.
And why should they let actors acting take up precious moments from the rooftop chases, the explosions, the gunfire, and posing like models? Everyone already knows these actors right? No need to develop anything more than flimsy excuses for action/motivation, right? Sarcasm aside - I never thought I'd hear myself say this, but I think Ballistic would have been a better, more sophisticated, film if they scrapped the plot and cliché character developments and just went for 90 minutes of uninterrupted Banderas and Liu gunning at each other backdropped by a slow-mo explosions.
This film would have to scale a cliff before reaching the level of plot intricacies and intelligence that just thrive in Michael Bay films.
We get a crappy plot and crappy characterizations anyway just in case we don't have a favorite actor to root for. We get ultra cliché scenarios that anyone who has been to a theatre in the last fifty years will pick up on. Oh no, a child's been kidnapped we're supposed to sympathize with the boy. There's the old (young?) has-been former cop (FBI guy in this movie) who lost his motivation we're supposed to sympathize with him and the loss of his family. And then there's--oh, but wait? What are these plot revelations? What are they pointing towards? Gasp! They're making the already obvious villain even more obvious! Me? I was rooting for the aliens from Independence Day to come down and blow them all up, but the bastards got stuck in traffic.
Somewhere in the movie is a subplot about a nano-assassin, but I cared about that as much as the movie does.
And since we're being honest, I admit this is a great film to watch after a night of provocative and cultured cinema to recalibrate your personal scale to the realities of the industry. Like I explained to the guy at Blockbuster, "I just got a box-set of Hitchcock, been watching those back to back, and the other day I watched De Palma's Femme Fatale. I need something trashy before I become a full-blown film snob." So I walked out with Ballistic and Shark Attack 3, went home, and turned off my mind for a marathon of stock footage and needless gunfire/explosions . . . and all was well.