Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever (2002)

User Rating:

3.4/10   

Director:

Wych Kaosayananda

Writer (WGA):

Alan B. McElroy (written by)

Release Date:

20 September 2002 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Thriller

Tagline:

Your most dangerous enemies are the friends you've double-crossed.

Plot:

Tasked with destroying each other, an FBI agent and a rogue NSA agent soon discover that there's a much bigger enemy at work.

Plot Keywords:

Enemy | FBI | Train | Poetic Justice | Killer

Awards:

4 nominations

Cast

Antonio Banderas	...	Jeremiah Ecks
Lucy Liu	...	Sever
Gregg Henry	...	Gant / Clark
Ray Park	...	Ross
Talisa Soto	...	Vinn / Rayne
Miguel Sandoval	...	Julio Martin
Terry Chen	...	Harry
Roger R. Cross	...	Zane
Sandrine Holt	...	Agent Bennett
Steve Bacic	...	Agent Fleming
Aidan Drummond	...	Michael
Eric Breker	...	Agent Curtis
Tony Alcantar	...	Edgar Moore
David Parker	...	Dark Suit #1
Josephine Jacob	...	Pretty Girl

Also Known As:

Ballistic (Germany)
Ecks vs. Sever (USA) (working title)
X vs. Sever (USA) (working title)

MPAA:

Rated R for strong violence.

Runtime:

91 min

Country:

USA | Germany

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby Digital | SDDS

Certification:

Malaysia:18SG | Canada:13+ (Quebec) | Canada:14 (Nova Scotia) | Canada:14A (Alberta/Manitoba) (Canadian Home Video rating) | Canada:AA (Ontario) | Canada:PG (British Columbia) | France:U | South Korea:12 | Netherlands:12 (TV version) (slightly cut) | Argentina:13 | Australia:M | Brazil:12 | Germany:16 | Netherlands:16 | New Zealand:M | Norway:15 | Philippines:PG-13 | Singapore:PG | UK:15 | USA:R (No. 39336) | Iceland:16

Filming Locations:

Vancouver Public Library, 360 West Georgia Street, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Company:

Franchise Pictures

Trivia:

The 2001 Game Boy Advance game "Ecks vs. Sever" was actually based on an early script draft for this film and not the other way around. The game's producers later made a sequel to that game that was based on the finished version of the movie.

Goofs:

Continuity: When Ecks is in the police bus picking the handcuffs, he is holding the paperclip with his right hand and picking the cuff on his left wrist. Suddenly, the cuff comes open around his right wrist, but the paper clip is still sticking out of the left cuff's lock.

Quotes:

Agent Harry Lee: Where is our mysterious killer?
Ecks: She's not a killer.
Agent Harry Lee: Then what is she?
Ecks: She's a mother.
Agent Harry Lee: Okay then, where is she?

Movie Connections:

Featured in "HBO First Look: Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever (#9.12)" (2002)

Soundtrack:

I Need Love

It blowed stuff up, and blowed up more

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.