The Way of the Gun: A loud and annoying movie, directed by Christopher McQuarrie, who wrote The Usual Suspects. Unfortunately, anything interesting, like Benicio del Toro, is drowned out in a cacophony of gunfire, swearing, and Ryan Phillippe's distressing accent. I wasn't paying all that much attention anyway, and after a while I turned it off. Also, please note: Juliette Lewis warning.
Monument Ave.: I turned this one off too. I rented it only because Billy Crudup is in it, and he turns out to have a tiny role and gets killed early on. The cast is strong -- Denis Leary as a petty thief, Ian Hart as his brother, Colm Meaney as the boss of the Boston Irish gang to which the brothers belong -- but the movie is uninvolving and predictable. Meaney routinely has suspected snitches killed, one time one of them turns out to be Leary's friend (that's Crudup), plus Leary's sleeping with Meaney's girl, blah blah blah. Whatever.
The Enforcer: Jet Li shows his stuff in this otherwise routine, poor-man's-John-Woo action flick. I was curious to see it since Li was originally supposed to have Chow Yun Fat's role in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and nothing here convinced me that he would have done a better job. Still, the fighting is way cool, especially one scene where Li and his son fight in tandem. The kid, by the way, is terrific. So is Anita Mui, veteran heroine of Jackie Chan movies and The Heroic Trio with Michelle Yeoh. The dubbing hurts the movie; it's just so distracting.
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