A Brief Review of "War"

Warning - A very short review with plot spoilers is below. Don't look any further that point one if you wish to remain surprised.

War, the new movie with Jet Li and some other actor (I'm a bit biased) was a big disappointment. Two actors great at karate, fighting each other - how could that not be a great movie! But alas, it did fall down.

First problem - I didn't check the rating. R for violence and partial nudity, which was shocking for a movie with Jet Li. He always has very clean movies (other than the martial art violence) and I had assumed this one would be the same.

Problem two - Very little fighting that was a pleasure to watch. It was all over too fast with camera angles too close to the actors. The sword fights were decent, but it look very well rehearsed.

Slight Problem three - everyone dies.

Redeeming quality- the bad guy wins. Really! It is the redeeming quality of the movie, and the only way it could end once the plot twist was revealed.

Jason Statham and his parter are tracking down "Rogue". Rogue traps Statham but his partner shoots him in the head. Someone snitches to the Yakuza on the cop that hurt Rogue, so Rogue (who didn't die) comes back and kills Statham's partner, wife, and child. The FBI agent, Statham, swears revenge and spends the next three years tracking down Rogue. At the end, Statham succeeds in tracking down Rogue, and the Triad and the Yakuza are wiped out in the process but Rogue kills the FBI agent in the end.

The plot twist. Rogue failed to kill Statham's betrayed partner John, but did kill the wife and child before dying. John swears revenge against the Yakuza who ordered the hit on him and his family and takes the place of Rogue (who needed major facial reconstruction anyway) to get close to the Yakuza boss who ordered the hit. Rogue manages to destroy both gangs branches in San Fransico but finally finds that the one who snitched and caused his wife and child to be killed was FBI agent Statham. Statham and 'Rogue' fight and Rogue kills Statham and decides to become Rogue since the only person he trusted was the one that betrayed him.

Because of Statham's betrayal, he loses his marriage, eventually his wife and kids are killed, his partner's wife and kids are killed, all but one of the FBI agents are killed, the gangs in SF are killed, long standing friends kill each other, and Statham's whole quest for revenge circles back to himself. Result and effect were all put together quite well and believably, and left me sad that innocents got caught in the crossfire, but satisfied that the mill of justice ground exceedingly fine for those who crossed any line. I was almost upbeat when I left!