the corruptor is a big silly mess of an action movie , complete with pointless plot turns and gratuitous violence .
it 's not abhorrent , or even blatantly unlikable , but
it does n't make a shred of sense .
and whose idea was it to have the director of glengarry glen ross direct an action film ?
james foley knows a lot about characters and acting , and those are the strengths of the corruptor .
but the quiet scenes clash with the ludicrous action nonsense , and the result is less like a movie and more like a derailed train .
at least we have chow yun - fat in the lead role .
chow plays nick chen , a chinatown cop .
he 's a good cop , as the first few scenes establish , and he 's very familiar with chinatown .
that 's probably why the powers - that - be decide to team him up with a rookie named danny wallace ( mark wahlberg ) .
nick and danny begin by stepping on each other 's toes , but finally end up liking each other once they both get a chance to save the other one 's life .
what happens after that is kind of a mystery to me .
i 'm fairly certain that the villains are all part of the fukienese dragons , led by a young chinese psycho named bobby vu ( byron mann ) .
i 'm also pretty sure that nick is on the payroll of henry lee ( ric young ) , a gangster dealing in prostitutes and other neat stuff .
i 'm not quite sure why henry lee decides to employ danny , although
this makes for some ridiculous ( albeit unpredictable ) plot twists along the way .
there 's also an interesting subplot revolving around danny 's father ( brian cox ) , but it does n't have much to do with the main story .
one of the problems , as i said , is that the movie does n't make any sense .
i do n't blame this entirely on foley , because he 's obviously a good director .
i 'm more inclined to point my finger at robert pucci 's script , which does n't seem to be in tune to the way normal people act .
one scene early on had me particularly annoyed :
nick confronts his boss because he 's angry about his new white partner .
he 's shouting and pointing his finger and stepping on the furniture , and i was thinking that i would have fired him if he had done that to me .
( in addition , the film takes a bite into race - related issues , and never develops them at all . )
there are a lot of scenes like this one , and none of them are very coherent
.
there 's also a considerable language barrier , given that chow and some of the other actors have thick chinese accents .
the plot itself never straightens out .
i 'm not sure who or what the fukienese dragons are , or why henry lee is associated with them , or what they do as a group .
the corruptor is an action movie , and so all these weird plot developments are decorated with loud and violent action sequences .
the sequences are n't bad , but they 're not new ; how many car chases through chinatown have you seen ?
on that note , how many chinatown cop movies have you seen ?
one too many , i 'd imagine .
foley 's strength is clearly in characterization , and he does a pretty good job here .
the scenes between nick and danny are very good , and i actually got a feel for their characters ; a bond forms between them that holds parts of the film together .
chow and wahlberg are both good actors ; chow is a pro , and can do this kind of stuff in his sleep .
wahlberg seems less at home in this atmosphere , but he 's still fun to watch .
i also liked the subplot involving danny 's father ; brian cox 's performance is powerful , and his character makes a compelling moral compass for danny .
but the film ultimately fails , mostly at the hands of insane incoherence and overly - familiar action scenes .
a complicated plot can be successful , but the story needs to make sense when it 's over .
the corruptor never manages to make any sense -- it just keeps spinning out of control
until , finally , there 's nothing left to hold on to .
Output: N