When his partner and partner's family are murdered in a revenge attack, FBI Agent Jack Crawford devotes his career to tracking down the near-mythical Yakuza assassin Rogue. Three years later his unit is starting to get close when Rogue because killing again in the San Francisco area. However his pursuit puts him right in the middle of a bloody gang war between the Yakuza and the Triads as the conflict between the two seems to be suddenly and violently escalating.
I ignored War at the cinema because of the negative reviews but when it came on television recently I checked it out a process which mainly confirmed by decision not to bother with it when I would have had to pay. It is not that War is a bad film (it is not) just that it is quite lacklustre in far too many regards. The story. The plotting has been described by others here as intelligent and complex but I have to disagree. I think it had potential but it is not drawn out as sharp as it needed to be for this and when it needs to be at its strongest (the conclusion) it really fails to execute and just fizzles out. However apart from the reviewer from The Observer, few will have come to this film looking for plot but instead top of the list will have been the desire for action specifically a faceoff between Li and Statham. Unfortunately this is also only so-so across the whole film. There is action that is noisy but there are no "killer" scenes and I was surprised by how uninvolved and unmoved I was by all of it.
Statham does help the film by having a great, tough charisma. It is a shame that he has yet to have a really strong action film but it is noticeable that he is a constant "good thing" even when other areas are lacking. Conversely Li has gone overboard on his "cool detached killer" character and at times appears to be either asleep or thinking about how long it would take him to spend all the money he has. I did not expect De Niro/Pacino type interactions here but I did think these two would be used off one another better but they were not their shared scenes did not stick in the memory one bit. The support is OK but unmemorable but it was nice to see Guzman, Kang, Velazquez (My Name is Earl) and Patrick (Six Feet Under). The direction and packing of the film is never more than genre-standard, with pumping music, quick edits and so on.
War is not a bad film, but it is a disappointing one. I ignored the hype so it is not a case of me believing that, but it is a case of me not being happy with a "so-so" film when a good one would not have been so hard to achieve. As it is most of the film is quite lacklustre and, while distracting, there are better films by both lead actors out there to see.
