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by Jim Pappas Published: May 13, 2005  Danny (Jet Li) is prepped for action by his master, Bart (Bob Hoskins) in, “Unleashed.”
Jet Li gives a fine performance as Danny, who is the “dog” for loan shark Bart (Bob Hoskins, excellent as usual). He wears a collar around his neck that when taken off releases him to attack the objects of Bart’s revenge: people who owe him money and those person’s goons, which they all seem to have. Later on Bart takes Danny into a subterranean world of staged fighting, fights that are to the death. What eventually causes Bart and Danny’s tidy little arrangement to be upset is the introduction of a piano. The instrument is found in the basement of an antique shop where Bart has gone to make a collection. Danny sees the piano, becomes fascinated with it, and when a blind piano tuner (Morgan Freeman as Sam, who is just mailing it in here) comes into the basement to work on the pianos stored there, Danny gets to act out his fantasy. Unfortunately for him, his fixation on the piano causes him to miss his cue to attack Bart’s designated victims. Where director Louis Leterrier and writer Luc Besson take us from there is how Danny begins to gain awareness of the world around him and begins to rebel against the authority and father figure that is Bart. “Unleashed” is a parable, as it compares absolute innocence with an almost pure form of evil. What I believe Besson the writer is trying to tell us is that we live in a world now that has become very polarized, and by comparing one end of the pole with the other we can get a better understanding of the differences between them. There are a many times in life where it isn’t so clear as to what is the right choice and what is the wrong choice, and Besson is trying to make it easier for us to make those choices here. The movie asks us to suspend a certain amount of belief, and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. I give credit to Besson for trying to tell a story with some meaning, but I had a hard time believing a lot of the circumstances surrounding Danny’s existence. If the movie had taken the time to show us some portion of Danny’s childhood with Bart it would have been easier to accept some of the elements of the story. It is this omission by the filmmakers that leads me to rate this film as I do. The fight sequences are choreographed by the ubiquitous Yuen Wo Ping, and they are brutally staged with very little of the fantasy elements present in recent kung fu films. That the fights are more realistic is again a juxtaposition of sorts. Not only is Besson comparing good and evil, he is also comparing fantasy with reality. I believe that director Leterrier translates Besson’s story as Besson wants it, and when you compare films by Besson as director with this one, you see some of the same type of devices used. I think back to the film “The Fifth Element,” and I can see that same reality vs. fantasy comparison present there. However, with “Unleashed” we just have to throw too much I consider logical out the window. Every story needs to have some kernel of believability to them, and that is what is missing in “Unleashed.” “Unleashed” opens nationally on May 13th. I should point out that it was released earlier this year in Europe under the title “Danny the Dog.” |
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