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BALLISTIC: ECKS VS. SEVER by Tom McCurrie
I love action movies. Not the web-slinging, cowl-wearing kind, but the
straight-ahead, nuts and bolts kind that has cops, spies and vigilantes
taking down the baddies with nothing but their brains and a healthy supply
of firearms.
That's why I was so jazzed to see BALLISTIC: ECKS VS. SEVER (BALLISTIC for
short). This tale of dueling assassins looked to be a pleasant break from
the endless chain of comic-book adaptations the studios continue to vomit
on the public. Unfortunately, BALLISTIC ends up spewing plenty of vomit
on its own, so much so you've gotta wonder whether the action genre is
headed the way of the Dodo.
(Warning: Spoilers Ahead!)
Written by Alan McElroy, BALLISTIC is probably the worst movie ever
produced by Franchise Pictures. And after previous Franchise abortions
like GET CARTER, THE ART OF WAR and BATTLEFIELD EARTH that's saying
something. After a filmography like this, you'd think
dry-cleaning-impresario-turned-movie-producer Elie Samaha would have had
his brain Martinized. But no, he keeps making these atrocities long after
most people would have quit, kind of like those zombies in DAWN OF THE
DEAD who keep shopping after they've already done the dirt nap.
BALLISTIC's script is quite miraculous when you think about it. After
all, how many other stories can you name that are both incomprehensible
and stale at the same time? Ostensibly about the hunt for an
"assassination device," this movie is so confusingly put together it seems
as if every other reel is missing.
Here are some choice plotholes from tonight's menu:
Ecks is haunted by his wife's death via carbomb seven years earlier. But
it turns out her death was faked. Then it turns out the wife didn't know
her death was faked and that she thought Ecks died in a carbomb himself.
(Huh???) Already my brain synapses are shorting out.
How can a person's death be faked without the knowledge of that person?
If the wife weren't hiding on purpose, she'd soon run into old
acquaintances and have some pretty embarrassing reunions! Best friend
Jenny would say, "That was a great funeral you had last week -- too bad
you couldn't make it!" And wouldn't these same friends tell her that ol'
hubby Ecks was still kickin'?
It turns out a baddie named Gant is behind the fakery. It also turns out
this same baddie is behind the death of Sever's baby. But it's never
clear why. Was the child's death an accident or on purpose? Without an
explanation, Sever's vengeance is completely unmotivated.
And why didn't Gant inject himself with the assassination device to sneak
it out of Germany? Injecting it into Ecks' son seems like a pointless
risk, especially since the kid could be so easily snatched. (Of course,
without the kid being kidnapped, you'd have no movie. But if your sole
reason for existence is based on a plothole, you're in mucho trouble from
the get-go.)
Why was Ecks blamed for his superior's shooting? He was the one that
warned him he was going to be hit!
Why did Gant fake his death to join an organization everyone knows about,
the Defense Intelligence Agency? Did he think he could hide in plain
sight?
And though I like Ray Park, why is a British national working for the
American Intelligence Community anyway? To see what Darth Maul looks like
without makeup? Sorry to say, he's not really very interesting without
the help of the Sith.
Crippling the movie even more is the stunning lack of characterization.
Except for the loss of their loved ones, Ecks and Sever get almost no
backstory. Sever goes through the flick with an emotionless mask -- you
have no idea what's going on behind those eyes of hers (I guess the writer
couldn't avoid the clich? of the inscrutable Chinese spy).
Ecks is equally blank. The only sign he's devastated over his wife's
death is that he seems to have stopped shaving. In LETHAL WEAPON, at
least you spend plenty of downtime with Martin Riggs, so you see the
struggle he's having with his sanity. With BALLISTIC you get nothing.
The actors simply have no time to develop their characters before the next
explosion.
Of course, Franchise could say, who cares about character when you have
action? That's what you go to action movies for, right? The action?
The trouble is the action sequences in BALLISTIC are beyond hackneyed. I
haven't seen so many speeding cars flip over for no reason since the
A-TEAM. And do those very same cars always have to explode like they're
made of C-4? The half-hearted martial arts sequences are no help, being
nothing but pale copies of THE MATRIX.
Of course, the cliche that breaks the screenplay's back has to be the
climactic gunbattle in the abandoned factory/warehouse/trainyard. Every
Dolph Lundgren/Jeff Speakman direct-to-video hack job ends this way. Do I
have to pay good money to see this junk in a theatre, too?
If you're going to give short shrift to character, then you better deliver
on the action. XXX did it big time. Vin Diesel's Extreme Bond wasn't
much of a part, but the action was very inventive -- and mind-boggling.
The avalanche scene alone was worth the price of admission.
Maybe the people who made BALLISTIC just don't care. They shot the flick
in Canada on the cheap so they'll make their money back no matter how lame
it is. But they should care, since the action genre might not be around
much longer if they don't practice a little quality control.
But maybe I should take a deep breath here. Am I too hard on these
scripts? After all, some like BALLISTIC are so obviously stinko that
criticizing them is tantamount to using a fully-loaded Howitzer on a
tsi-tsi fly. Do I tear these scripts apart just to vent my own
frustrations over the film business? (Well, maybe a little, heh, heh.)
But I think that's shortchanging myself and you. I know how hard it is to
write a good script, and I'm sure you all do, too. So to see
"professionals" continuously put out mediocre work irks me to no end.
When it comes down to it, movies costing tens of millions of dollars (and
costing close to ten bucks a ticket) should have much better stories. If
you have to take out a second mortgage just to buy a small popcorn, you
shouldn't have to settle for tripe like BALLISTIC.
So I'll make a deal with you -- I'll keep dissing the crapola and you guys
keep writing. Believe me, after suffering through BALLISTIC, the audience
needs you!
Responses, comments and general two-cents worth can be E-mailed to
gillis662000@yahoo.com.
A graduate of USC's School of Cinema-Television, Tom McCurrie has worked
as a development executive and a story analyst. He is currently a
screenwriter living in Los Angeles.
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