Strung Up

Note: This review was scheduled to run on the beautiful day in early April when the Maryland Terrapins men's basketball team defeated the Indiana Hoosiers in the NCAA championship game. What a time to decide not to mention Juan Dixon and Lonny Baxter in my review, when I'd been doing it with such generous regularity for most of the spring! So it got squeezed, and, uniquely for this period, this website is the only place this review even theoretically exists.

"Strung Up" is the movie "Charlie's Angels" desperately wanted to be, and it'll be the action film to beat for years to come. These are strong claims, but the opening scene alone substantiates them all. We open up in the Philharmonie, Berlin, watching the phenomenally talented and exceptionally attractive Baetri String Quartet ripping through the demonically charged fourth movement of Franz Schubert's "Death and the Maiden" quartet.

The camera darts around the ensemble, picking up their nimble fingers and quicksilver bowing. It also picks up - imperceptibly at first - a number of armed men clad in black descending on tethers into the audience. With a small nod, the women immediately lay down their instruments and fly effortlessly through the air, feet first, putting an exceptionally visceral hurt on the armed men.

Finally, all appear to be subdued, including the incredulous, hushed audience. But one man staggers into the box seats, holding a gun to a hostage's head. We now realize that the cellist never left the stage, and she uses her A string as a bowstring, launching her bow across a hundred-yard span at the scumbag. Time freezes. The camera circles the curved stick in the air. And the expression on the man's face afterwards indicates that he had no way of even perceiving that the last thing going through his mind would be her bow.

The cellist spits. "Don't ever mess with a Schubert finale," she says.

It turns out that Baetri is an acronym for Biological Attack Enhancement Training, Research and Implementation, a supersecret research endeavor of the U.S. government whose first product is these four lovely ladies: first violinist Angela Palmer (Cameron Diaz), second violinist Maya Roberts (Jessica Alba), violist Karen Lin (Lucy Liu), and cellist Maria Encarnacion (Michelle Rodriguez).

Their enhancer and manager Carol Wallace (Pam Grier) decided to train them as a string quartet for three reasons. String quartets travel to the capital cities of the world as a matter of course, so they could easily go where evil strikes. No one would expect the member of a string quartet to be able to whomp evil's collective ass. And she really, really wanted to hear Ludwig van Beethoven's Grosse Fuge played by biologically enhanced musicians.

But they've got bigger foes to fight than incompetent German hostage-takers. An anarchist group flush with righteous fervor and the cash of a deranged billionaire has decided to try to take out the Brisith Parliament, the Japanese Diet and the U.S. Congress on consecutive days, using the highest technology (and explosives) available. Wallace immediately sends the Baetri on tour to London, Tokyo, and D.C. Allegro combattimento, indeed.

Director Tsui Hark, the Hong Kong legend trying once again to make it big in American cinema, steers this high-risk vehicle brilliantly. His fights, of course, dazzle with lurid swoops and zooms, tight, efficient editing and liberal, effective use of slow-motion and stop-action to show just how biologically enhanced these hot chicks are. Even more impressively, he manages to knit the music into the texture of the film, providing both in-jokes for classical fans (you've never heard a Bartók pizzicato snap like this) and a breathtaking illustration of the power of some of these works for newbies. Going John Woo and his choral backdrops one better, Hark sets the entire fifteen-minute finale to the strains of the Grosse Fuge, and the confluences between the music and the action are electrifying.

Of course, Hark is helped by his cast, all of whom are foxy ladies who can nevertheless kick some serious ass. This is girl power that doesn't need to announce itself, any more than a punch in your face does. Diaz and Liu, of course, are veterans of that earlier venture, but both seem more free and vibrant here than in "Charlie's" goofy overstylization: Diaz with her megawatt smile and long, loose limbs effortlessly playing the extrovert leader, Liu giving as good as she gets in post-show viola-related teasing but still setting her jaw coldly for some relentless smackdown action. Alba has the most experience playing a biologically enhanced hot chick from Fox's "Dark Angel," and she delivers her punches well here, while Rodriguez backs up her constant trash-talking with serious firepower.

And Hark even lets these women act a bit, and all these women do a good job with the economical but evocative material in David Ayer's script, showing each musician's strengths and weaknesses, motivations and character. This makes it all the more impressive when they're taking eighty-foot leaps through the air to demolish bad people and defuse ticking bombs or playing Einojuhani Rautavaara's String quartet no. 2 with both finesse and power.

Perhaps it is too early to say that "Strung Up" will set the standard for years to come; after all "Star Wars Episode II" is coming out soon, and it looks awesome. But it's safe to say that "Strung Up" will remain unsurpassed for a long, long time. And at the very least, it's the best action film that'll come out this April, fool.

I still think this is vaguely plausible until I get to Einojuhani Rautavaara. Like anyone would ever say that name in an action movie. I still entertain occasional thoughts of writing the movie, too, although I'd probably have to replace Einojuhani Rautavaara with Sofiya Gubaidulina. Hollywood is so commercial.

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