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| Directed by James Foley; Starring Chow Yun-Fat, Mark Wahlberg, Ric Young, Jon Kit Lee, Elizabeth Lindsey, Bryon Mann, Andrew Pang, and Brian Cox |
Is this the final draw between me and James Foley? To this day, he and Francis Ford Coppola are the quintessential beginners’ luck directors. For heaven’s sake, his 1992 film Glengarry Glen Ross was my favorite film of the year and that was the year of Unforgiven, Reservoir Dogs, and The Crying Game. Sure he had a tough beginning with 1987’s Madonna/Griffen Dunne vehicle Who’s That Girl, but does that really account for the dismal Fear (also starring Wahlberg) and the even worse The Chamber (still the worst John Grisham adaptation yet).
And on a tangent, where is Yun-Fat going? I was one of those critics that gave a recommendation to his American debut in The Replacement Killers and many of his Chinese action films, but I’m going to have to say that even he was awful in this. Mark Wahlberg was delightful in Boogie Nights from two years ago, but I knew where he was letting his career go after seeing The Big Hit last year (how could John Woo executive produce that?).
The real thing that made The Corruptor look bad was that it came off as a dramatic version of Lethal Weapon 4. That was not helped by the fact that the same actor plays a character named Uncle Benny in both. The thumb tilts even further down as the film gets into its second hour in which it goes into a lackluster action sequence and even more so finale.
All in all the only thing I can say that is good for The Corruptor is the performance of Brian Cox. If the name is not familiar, you probably haven’t seen Rushmore, a much much better film.
