First-time director Wych Kaosayananda prefers to go by the shortened Kaos. It’s pronounced “chaos,” and now we know why. Someone test this man for attention deficit disorder, for he can’t go ten minutes without destroying something. And not just lighting it up I mean full on decimation. Ballistic has three or four unrelated, pre-planned action set pieces, and screenwriter Alan McElroy receives the thankless task of connecting them with the thinnest of plot threads. Needless to say, he doesn’t do a very good job.
Not that I was expecting a Jane Austen period romance, but a little plot with my C4 goes a long, long way. Kaos does avoid using tired Matrix gimmicks to spice up his action, preferring an old fashioned slow motion shot. These almost provide Ballistic with a quaint retro feel characteristic of international spy thrillers circa 1975, when burned out heroes banished to rain-soaked foreign locales (really Vancouver) raced against a gaggle of anonymous government cells to save the planet.
Few actors could pull off Ecks, and Banderas reminds us that he’s one of them. Played like the evil twin to Gregorio Cortez from the Spy Kids franchise, Banderas buries every other line of dialogue underneath a wet blanket of boredom and disdain. He’s the lone treat in Ballistic, but even he grows tiresome before long. Liu never breaks a sweat or shows emotion, making it difficult to care about her existence. In addition, her backstory takes a back seat to Ecks’ history, even though his makes less sense as the movie moves along. References are made to a family she lost, but we’re never sure how or why.
Ballistic also needs better baddies. Roger R. Cross, playing the criminal mastermind behind the convoluted central scam, is a poor man’s Gary Busey, who’s a poor man’s Robert Mitchum himself. And Ray Park without any sort of make-up just isn’t scary. Girls could kick his tail, and in Ballistic, a girl does.
For more movies like Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever (2002) visit Hurawatch.
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