Exit Wounds

Hey, everyone! Check out the gratuitous DMX puns!

When you go to see a film called "Exit Wounds," you don't expect certain things, like a coherent plot, depths of characterization, or sensitivity towards women. What you do expect—what you've paid your eight bucks to see—are charismatic heroes, bodacious T&A, and the supremely important heart-stopping action scenes. Andrzej Bartkowiak's first try at having a martial artist and DMX clean up the 'hood, "Romeo Must Die," provided all of these; it didn't have enough action scenes, and it was overlong, but it seemed to be a promising first effort. Unfortunately, Bartkowiak saddles "Exit Wounds" with some of the worst action direction in recent memory, which means that nice performances by Steven Seagal and the pride of the Ruff Ryders, along with a generally decent supporting cast, are wasted.

Seagal plays Orin Boyd, a Detroit cop who, in the film's opening scene, pushes the Vice-President of the United States into the Detroit River. Of course, Boyd did this to save the veep from massive gunfire which had erupted on the Belle Isle Bridge, but Boyd nevertheless gets a transfer to the 15th Precinct to think about what he's done. In classic action film style, Boyd is a cop who just can't stop beating the crap out of lawbreakers, and whom lawbreakers seem attracted to like moths to a light. One such moth is Latrell Walker (DMX), who loses his cool up in a parking lot when Boyd sees him arranging a heroin buy. Yet things are not as they may seem down at the 15th, and before long Boyd has stopped, dropped his earlier antagonisms, and begun to roll with Walker, to ride roughshod on criminals in the hood and the precinct.

Seagal continues to vie with Jean-Claude Van Damme for the title of Worst Actor Employed For Martial-Arts Ability. Fortunately, Seagal still takes roles where his inability to show emotion is not a problem; he is called upon to act bruising here, and bruising he acts. More intriguing is DMX, who unlike Seagal actually has screen presence of an animate kind; his introspection is convincing, his rages are formidable, his coolness and poise are admirable. If starring in films will distract DMX from creating more virulently misogynist raps, it's a win-win situation for all of us.

These two, as noted above, are supported well. Anthony Anderson and Tom Arnold provide effective comic relief (this is not a film where you want too much comic relief coming from your stars), and Isaiah Washington makes a good dedicated partner for Seagal's law-enforcement antics. Numerous bruising actors take numerous bit parts and keep the violence coming, especially Michael Jai White, Matt Taylor, and Jill Hennessy, who overcomes the handicap of being female to turn in some truly visceral reckless driving.

Reckless driving is about all Bartkowiak can direct well, however, because it is the only activity where he feels the need to show us what the hell is going on. There is a trend in action films lately to suggest rather than show action, as poor lighting, shaky cameras and overpowering soundtracks substitute for actually showing the various blows dealt. It is deplorable. Action films should show action, not use various cues to tell us it is happening.

Bartkowiak seemed to understand this in "Romeo Must Die," where he treated Jet Li's immense fighting ability with the directorial respect it deserved. But here, when faced with two much-less-skilled leads, he doesn't go to the trouble. His fistfights, with an exception in a nightclub, are incoherent; we have no idea who just kicked who, except that Seagal or DMX probably got the better of it. His gunfights are equally useless; merely pumping up the volume so that each individual gunshot poses a threat to one's long-term hearing (this is a LOUD film) cannot make up for a complete lack of logic or even basic care in staging. As Bartkowiak directs, you can't follow the action, so you can't have that wonderful feeling where you're drawn into and then completely mesmerized by the physical violence being dished out onscreen. As a result you start to wonder about various plot inconsistencies. And at no time in an action film should you be wondering about plot inconsistencies.

I close with a personal plea. I like action films. I forgive them a lot. It's part of liking action films. All I want from my action films, in the end, is some goddamn action. However, if the new crop of directors ignore the example of directors like John Woo and Tsui Hark and John McTiernan and Ridley Scott, directors who can give us action scenes that are bruising, visceral and involving even when they make bad films, I may have to switch my primary cinematic allegiance to comedies or dramas or even (God forbid) French movies. I do not want to do this.

Bartkowiak, Antoine Fuqua, McG, and the rest of you, repent of your sins! Study past masters! Use the new technologies to enhance, not to overwhelm! Respect your actors! Or the action genre will surely die for want of viewers, and we'll all have to see more films like "See Spot Run" or "Sweet November," films which, unlike action films, are bad in utterly boring ways. And nobody wants that. Gentlemen, the choice is yours.

DETROIT WILL GET ITS BACK

Apart from the opening scene, Detroit looks a lot like Oakland, at least as the two cities are depicted in "Romeo Must Die" and "Exit Wounds." But I am not fooled. Filmmakers set films in Detroit to take advantage of the popular perception that Detroit is a crime-overridden hellhole, much as they set films in Chicago as a stand-in for "middle America," or in Florence as shorthand for "residence of cannibalistic psychiatrists." When will someone depict Detroit as the city of industry and culture that it is? Stop laughing! We have a better symphony than anyone in New York does in any case.

WACKY PRESS-KIT QUOTES

One of these is actually amusing on purpose. Guess which one.

Bob Hoskins on Nikita "We Will Bury Your Puny American Footwear" Khrushchev: "Khrushchev was an amazing character. He was strong and full of energy and could be ruthless. It helps to know emotionally where the man was coming from."

Ed Harris on Major Konig, who attempts to shoot Vassily Zaitsev (Jude Law) throughout "Enemy at the Gates": "The tension between my character and Jude's character is inherent in the script."

Anthony Anderson: "I've gotten my ass kicked by the best. Jet Li beat the best. But Steven Seagal can still kick a good ass. It's a different kind of kicking, though."

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