Hey folks, Harry here... shockingly - this isn't a remake of an Asian film of the same name - that's coming in 2006. This, however, is coming in late summer to early Fall 2005. Which means they've got forever and a year to basically fine tune what could only have been an initial assembly of the movie. The below reviewer gets pretty harsh with the end of the film - but as we all know... this far out, especially on thrillers... This film doesn't have distribution yet, but with Jason Statham and the rest of this cast, there was something that attracted them to this project... Hopefully - this'll become something really cool some day. Now beware of spoilers...
Longtime reader of your site Mr. Knowles and figured I'd throw in my two cents of a wayyy advance screening of Chaos, starring (in order of screentime) Ryan Phillipe, Jason Statham and Wesley Snipes. I think the name of the guy who wrote and directed this was Mike Agiglio or something along those lines, it didn't sound familiar to me, but he stuck around afterwards to hear the focus group, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
The movie begins in slam bang fashion with a car chase involving a hostage. Jason Statham's character catches up to the criminal and the criminal's hostage and is somehow involved in her death (I won't say how because it comes up later in the plot). So he is suspended from the force until a bank heist executed by Wesley Snipes and a few other guys, which draws him back onto the force because Wesley will only talk to him. The catch is that Statham has to be followed around by Phillipe to keep him out of control. Okay. Whew. Moving on.
So the bank robbery (probably the best sequence in the film) goes well and the criminals get away. Phillipe and Statham must track them down. The movie's title comes from Phillipe's belief that Snipes has somehow studied The Chaos Theory. This was interesting until approximately two seconds later when the entire thread is dropped by the film makers who are more concerned with Statham and Phillipe getting shot at and shooting things.
The plot moves slowly, with the only interesting twists few and far between. The heist as I've said is well done and complex, but once that's out of the way it's just a matter of shooting at Wesley and missing. The chemistry between Statham and Phillipe is forced at best. The best I can say about the action is "mediocre." **TINY SPOILER** Snipes's character's inability to shoot at anything but a stationary target is a bit interesting considering the "huge revelation" that he was at one time a cop.
To get to my main criticism of the film- the plot twist at the end of the movie is HORRIBLE. And by HORRIBLE I mean defying all logic. Not that you can't see it coming- it screams "STUDIO." I'm not one to give a movie away, so you won't hear it from me, but expect extreme dissapointment at the resolution of this movie, particularly as it makes one character's motivations ENTIRELY STUPID.
At the end of the screening I had to sit through a focus group to get a movie pass, so I did. The filmmakers seemed happy because about half of the audience seemed pacified with the "average" thriller. Whether there is time enough for re-shoots I'm not entirely sure, I think they are aiming for a summer release, so probably not. It's not that I'm dissapointed because the movie on the whole was god-awful, it's that it pretends to be something it's not- smart.
- Nolan Night
