Oct 10 2008
B+ Movie Review: Wasabi
When I walk into a film, I want to know as little about it as possible. Usually, I only need the film’s title and genre, the name of the lead actors and the name of the director. I’ve been in doubt about many projects until I hear a good producer is attached. Sometimes a writer alone is enough to put me off.
Take, for instance, Luc Besson. I want to like his work. Leon: The Professional was amazing, even if creepy in its pedophilic moments. I feel The Fifth Element was flawed but at least pretty. The Transporter and its sequel were entertaining, but only at the popcorn and soda, Saturday matinee, don’t-think-about-it-things-are-blowing-up level. But then there are the movies Kiss of the Dragon and Unleashed, which seem to have all the right ingredients for an omelet filled with kick ass (good concept, good cast) but curdle because of too much herb de Besson.
Such is the flaw to his otherwise notable screenplay Wasabi.
Wasabi starts with a French supercop, played by Jean Reno, finding out that he’s got an 19 year old daughter, the product of a 20 year old affair with a Japanese spy. Reno’s character goes to Japan (while on suspension, like most movie cops are) to seek out the daughter, played with frenetic excellence by Ryoko Hirosue. Once there, things get blown up and people get pummeled as the father tries to figure out how to relate to his daughter while at the same time how to save her from a deadly plot to which she is key.
This movie has some great moments. There are slapstick fight scenes that would make Jackie Chan proud, particularly one in which Reno is beating the crap out of people who are tailing his daughter as they shop for clothes, delivering the smackdown without his daughter seeing a thing. It’s got some fleeting moments of warmth and tenderness, like when Reno is correcting Ryoko’s French. It also has a taste of drama as they both deal with the loss of the woman whose death brought them together.
The movie is hard to pin down to one genre because it has elements of so many. And that’s where it comes up just short of greatness.
This movie makes the mistake of trying to be all things to all people. It wants to be an action comedy, except when it wants to be gritty action drama. It will try to get you to be scared of the villains while simultaneously trying to get you to laugh at how they’re being implausibly stomped by one man with a pair of golf clubs. The movie starts to look tense and thrillerish, but then turns all buddy film on you without warning. It seems to want to be many so many different stories that it fails to do any of them justice. This movie had cult classic written all over it and should have been phenomenal. Instead, it turned out fun but forgettable.
Except maybe for the scene with the transvestite bank robbers. That will stay with you.
Wasabi ranks a strong C, which is sad because with a bit more focus, this really could have been a B+ Movie.
