Review of Unleashed (2005) by Tyler M — 31 Mar 2012

Ripe means sweet, and sweet means good... I think this one was picked too soon.

The Story: A conditioned martial arts expert is trained to kill at his masters will, but when he gets out on his own he learns the true value of "family"... I'm not going to lie to you good readers out here, in fact this may be one of the most blunt reviews I've ever done... This film has about 40 minutes of entertainment value, and it's 102 minutes long. That means that less than half of this film is worth watching... It starts out great, super stylish, ultra violence with some cool martial arts work from Jet Li, but once the film picks up, it turns into a cheesy family values snooze-fest... And than turns once again to super stylish ultra violence... See, the real story of the film is that whenever the master takes the collar off the pit bull, it kills with relentless brutality, but once the it gets a taste of quality biscuits it turns into a fluffy poodle. The first 20 minutes or so are good, the middle is bad, and the last 20 minutes or so are good again. All in all, its attempt at a message of morals just comes off as hollow.

The Cast: Jet Li, Morgan Freeman, Kerry Condon, Bob Hoskins... Jet Li is Danny, the conditioned killing machine turned fluffy poodle. Not his greatest performance here, sure he does a lot of cool stuff, but he proves that style is sometimes more important than substance. Bob Hoskins is Bart... Yeah, I know sounds mean doesn't it? In case you couldn't tell that was sarcasm, who names their evil villain Bart? He gives a strong if not unrealistic performance here, how is it that in a cast consisting of Jet Li and Morgan Freeman, Bob Hoskins takes home the best performance award? Morgan Freeman is Sam, he proves that if you're black and blind you belong at a piano... I mean, isn't that the real message of the film, he's like Ray Charles minus the cool. He gives a decent performance, but it's definitely nothing to write home about. Kerry Condon is Victoria, the loud obnoxious white girl living with the quiet boring blind black man. A lackluster performance from start to finish... Give her some valium and than maybe she'll be tolerable.

One to Five Scale: 2.

IT'S BORING! Watch the first 20 minutes and skip to the last 20 minutes. Give it a rental if you're a fan of Jet Li, but don't get your hopes up if you're a fan of Freeman... And go ahead and enjoy Hoskins, it's a true shame we don't see more of him in cinema today.

Tyler.