Surprisingly original buddy-buddy cop movie featuring the acting talents of one of Hong Kong's finest, Chow Yun-Fat (A Better Tomorrow, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) and Mark Wahlberg. Yun-Fat is Nick Chen, one of the NYPD's finest and an expert on the cities violent Chinatown underground. He is, however, corrupt and in the pay of one of the biggest Chinese gangs, the Tong. His cosy life of big money and glorious arrests is threatened by the arrival of Wahlberg's Danny Wallace, a young, white, rookie cop who he believes is ill-equipped to deal with the complexity of operating in such a dangerous and unpredictable environment.
So far, so predictable. Only Yun-Fat's corruptability (hence the title) rises this above the average cop film and his English, though far better than Jet Li or Jackie Chan, still makes his Americanisation hard to accept. However, he is not known for picking bad films and as it moves along at a relatively slow pace subtle changes can be seen from the usual pattern of Hollywood shoot-em-ups. The action scenes themselves are surprisingly rare and though director James Foley injects some clever originality into some of them he's clearly a little unsure of how to deal with this sort of thing. The exception to this being a fantastic car chase half way through the movie which solidifies the pair's friendship and mutual respect.
Yun-Fat's Chen actually comes to respect his young partner far earlier than in the typical fare for this genre and the resulting lack of frission is excellently moulded for the twists and betrayal to come. You can tell from the off that Chen is going to have a hard time explaining himself away and this helps the audience accept his distrusting early attitude to Wallace and his wish to save his own ass as the FBI close in on him.
While not in the same league as most of Yun-Fat's earlier works this one shows real promise for him establishing himself as a respectable action star in the west, something he has worked very hard to achieve. Wahlberg is pretty much the same as in Boogie Nights, Three Kings etc, decent and honest but always seeming a little behind in the story. He will have to highlight his range a lot more in the coming years if he wishes to remain as hot a property as he is now. |
