South Korean director Kim Jee-Woon (
I Saw the Devil,
A Tale of Two Sisters) makes his first Hollywood actioner, having good fun with such American iconography as the Arizona desert, oversized guns, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. The story is a Looney Tunes reworking of
Rio Bravo, with Schwarzenegger as a small-town sheriff forced to stop a violent drug cartel on its way to the Mexican border. Yet the film feels like a South Korean action comedy with its funky compositions and fluid camerawork, which privilege spatial coherence over moment-to-moment sensation. This is enjoyable but familiar, full of craft and comic energy but devoid of thematic urgency or personal investment. The lively supporting cast includes Forest Whitaker, Johnny Knoxville, and Luis Guzman.
By
Ben Sachs