Rating: 

The Info

Directed by: James Foley
Written by: Robert Pucci
Starring: Chow Yun-Fat, Mark Wahlberg
Produced by: Dan Halsted

The Nutshell

A young, inexperienced detective joins the Chinatown anti-gang unit in New York only to find himself embroiled in a hyperviolent world of crime and corruption.

The Review

    The Corrupter is part action film, part buddy-cop film and part police drama. It is an uncomfortable blend of Lethal Weapon and Serpico. It is a look at the criminal underworld of New York's Chinatown, complete with illegal immigrants used as sex slaves and gun-toting young punks in gangs roaming the streets. While the film's pieces don't fit together, it offers some well-choreographed gunfights and car chases, along with a dark view of Chinatown that reveals its crime-infested core.

    A young cop, Danny Wallace (Wahlberg), joins an anti-gang Chinatown unit. He is added to the unit to satisfy complaints by the unit's leader, Nick Chen (Yun-Fat). Chen is instantly irate as he makes the point that every member of the Chinatown unit is Chinese-American, since the Chinese don't trust white cops. It takes some time before Chen is ready to trust Wallace enough to show him the ropes. There is a war going on between the Fukinese gang, and a group controlled by Uncle Benny and his second-in-command Henry Lee. Lee wastes little time before trying to corrupt Wallace, offering him up big crime busts and other enticements such as prostitutes. At first resistant, Wallace soon learns that the lure of Chinatown is persuasive and finds himself enjoying Lee's comforts. We discover that Chen is also corrupt, helping Henry Lee in various ways. Eventually Chen and Wallace battle the source of corruption in Chinatown, bringing on the wrath of the Fukinese gang. A side storyline involving Wallace's father serves little purpose, while Chen's feelings for a prostitute give him a much-needed emotional side.

    In several ways, this film is cheesy and poor. Yun-Fat and Wahlberg seem to be trying to imitate Detectives Riggs and Murtaugh from Lethal Weapon, with Nick Chen often throwing his arms around wildly, making silly faces and being annoying, while Wallace's face never cracks a smile and he speaks in a monotone voice that gets irritating. Regretfully, Yun-Fat and Wahlberg lack any of the charisma that made Mel Gibson and Danny Glover's Lethal Weapon a four-film series. James Foley's direction is very uneven, with much effort put into making exciting, tense battles, but none put into the rest of the film. One car chase in particular is intense as Foley brings the camera right into next to the lead car, giving it a "you're there" feel. Contrastly, one scene in which Wallace is driving while talking to Chen is laughable with Wallace looking away from the road for periods of close to five seconds.

    Foley's vision of Chinatown's underworld is dark and in shadows. Wallace descends to filthy, poorly lit basements which are reminiscent of something out of Se7en. The lengths to which various bad guys go to save themselves is disturbing, with one scene involving the shooting of multiple bystanders hard to stomach. The Corrupter takes a hard look at corruption, but fails to make any real statement about it, choosing to concentrate more on the action in the end. Had the balance between drama and action been finer, this could be have been a great film.

Copyright - Tim Chandler

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