Melvin Smiley is a successful hit-man with a great boss Paris, and great friends including Cisco, Crunch and Vince.
He is just hapless in love, with a fiance Pam, and a girlfriend Chantel, bleeding him dry.
He agrees to tag along with a simple kidnapping of billionaire Jiro Nishi’s daughter Keiko. Just there are two problems…
Nishi is now broke due to self indulgent expenses, and Kieko just happens to be Paris’ Goddaughter!
Direction
Directed by Hong Kong director/actor Che-Kirk Wong. I found some of his styles on point, such as solid use of flares/slow mo (the opening gun fight/Cisco’s cigarette drop), and some fun camera angles (the glass drop).
There are some aged graphics (Mel’s bungee jump) and some odd “geographical” edits (how did Mel get hundreds of feet below the car that crashed?
Cast/Characters
Mark Wahlberg plays Smiley, however I don’t feel he gave anywhere near his best work here. At times he looks lost with the screenplay – and it would be some time before he gave more solid performances.
Lou Diamond Phillips, Bokeem Woodbine and Antonio Sabato Jr play Cisco, Crunch and Vince.
Avery Brooks, Sab Shimono and China Chow play Paris, Nishi and Keiko.
Christina Applegate, and Lela Rochon play Pam and Chantel.
Other cast are Elliot Gould, and Lainie Kazan as Pam’s parents, and Robin Dunne as Gump (poor Gump) one of Cisco’s cohorts.
Breakdown
At a very rushed 88m, we still feel like we get to know Melvin as a character, and despite Wahlberg’s not so perfect performance, we still like him. He is insecure, and just wants people to like him.
While not quite ‘self aware’ as other action comedies, you never really take it too seriously – especially with some of the comedy of errors that take place (like what are the odds the billionaire has gone broke, and the kidnappee is the boss’ god daughter!)
Sab Shimono gets the most laughs with his hilariously bad sounding film, his tech (trace buster buster).
Lou Diamond Phillips gets my MVP. He seemed to be having an absolute blast as the friend turned foe. His overacting is a great counterbalance for Wahlberg’s under acting.
There are also some genuinely fun moments like when Keiko is dropped off at Mel’s house, and he must hide her from Pam and her parents. Even at the very brief run time, I don’t think they really added much to the plot other than to let Gould and Kazan have some fun moments of “ethnicity”.
Crunch’s “arc” is a little aged – and while it works for me, it is only due to the nostalgia I remember at the time it was released. It might still be funny for younger audiences. At one point I thought they had forgotten about Vince, as he gets the least to do inside the film.
I didn’t buy that Keiko and Mel would fall in love, this just made no sense in a movie where logic would be included – but since this movie has no logic, I can let it go. The sexual innuendo between them (the chicken stuffing) goes on for too long too. Why the eff was she calling him Skipper???
Overall
This is one of those movies that has not ‘aged well’ – it lives in the era of the 90’s, and worked for those of us who grew up there. The jokes, and some of the lived in moments (tape not rewound?) just don’t work for a mid 2020’s audience.
3/5
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