Hard Boiled

Hard Boiled

When you hear the words “Hard Boiled,” what’s the first thing that pops into your head?That’s right. Eggs. Which is rather ironic, since this movie was probably written by a chicken.From director John Woo, the Einstein who brought you “ Mission : Impossible 2” and “Face/Off” “Hard boiled” has a script that makes about as much sense as the lyrics to the opening song in a 007 movie. The characters, consequently, are approximately as well developed as pictures taken with a camera recovered from the wreckage from the Titanic. The action makes Stallone movies look plausible,  and the characters are made of Styrofoam, because  cardboard implies too much substance.Now, before I give a run down of the plot, I should probably explain why I hate this movie so much. The film was called “better than a dozen Die hards,” won awards at several film ceremonies, and contains what many call “the greatest action sequence of all time.” That’s saying a lot. Considering all of the inventive and thrilling action scenes in “The Matrix” “Terminator” and “Dollars” franchises, this movie had to have some fancy firing.Well, it did have some funny fighting. But nothing worthy of an award.The movie opens with some cops raiding a Tea house, trying to kill some powerful arms dealers. When the bad guys catch on to the police, a gratuitous shootout begins. The main character, a cop named Tequila, and his partner (Whose name is presumably Vodka) end up doing a lot of stupid acrobatics in order to survive, including sliding down banisters and flinging tea cups at their opponents. Just a tip: When you’re writing an action movie, taking your queues from Mary Poppins usually isn’t a great idea.The thrill of the chase gets to Vodka’s head, and he charges into a death trap and is slain. Someone should have told him: all Vodka corrupts, but absolut vodka corrupts, absolutely.Tequila kills every man woman and child still alive, including one undercover cop. This earns him a lot of flack from his police chief, who is mad that Tequila didn’t telepathically figure out one of the gangsters was with the police. Disgraced, our hero goes back to his house, in a jazz club.Yes, he does live in a jazz club. Apparently he sleeps there. And his musical skills are about equal to those of Bill Pullman in “The Zero Effect,”           

We then get to meet our other main character, Tony, an undercover cop trying to spy on the arms trade. He rises quickly through the ranks, by betraying his partners, friends and employers. Kind of like Donald Trump, except Tony is secretly working for the good guys. And has hair.Tequila finds out about the undercover guy after he swings on a vine into an arms warehouse like a monkey (I can’t make this stuff up) and makes contact with him. Using their plot device powers, the two discover an unfortunate secret: millions of dollars in guns are being stored in a hospital, right next to the morgue. Funny, you think the doctors would have noticed that all the patients they treat seem to be coming from inside the hospital.After a random subplot where an informer has killed, John Woo decides to set fire to the script, and let our two heroes run amok with weapons, hoping for resolution. But the bad guys have a plan to stop the two crusaders. They’ll take the whole hospital as a hostage. If I had to pick between watching this movie again, and being tied to a scalding hot rod with electric eels, while being whipped with a piece of razor wire while my eyelids were held open and I was made to watch the Godfather part III…. I’d watch “Hard Boiled” again. BUT IT WOULD BE CLOSE! It’s cheesier than a velveeta factory, and doesn’t have any redeeming emotional core, or philosophical points. The plot is pretty standard and cliché. There’s nothing remarkable about the film except it is implausible, and lacks direction. I might be ok with giving it a 6/10. However, the publicity it has gotten is what makes me harsher on it. This is a mediocre film which is given more praise than it is due. Stay away from it, or the writing might start to hard boil your brain. 4/10.