The Farmer’s Wife

XXX (2002)

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

The heaviest messages attempted by the director of XXX, Rob Cohen,
is to say that smoking kills and that if the brain dead youth didn’t have
their loud rap music and PlayStation video games (a not too subtle advertisement
for the Sony product) where else could they learn something! A wall-to-wall
covered adrenalin action-spoof spectacle results with some really forgettable
dialogue, rote acting from the hero and especially the villains, and a
script that could have been drawn in picture form by using crayons and
have been just as literate as the final one presented. The film’s main
purpose is seemingly to become a business enterprise like the James Bond
films it pays homage to. It reunites star and director from their last
such box office smash and anti-intellectual venture, “The Fast and
the Furious.” XXX is an irreverent take on the icon it worships – 
007. In addition, it sure does itself proud by promoting both the pop-culture
and the extreme-sports scenes. That is where not only its antisocial hero
comes from but, perhaps, the film’s hardcore fan base mostly likely also
does.

The red herring disguised as the plotline is about an anarchist gang
made up of ex-Soviet disgruntled military personnel, scum, snakes, and
dangerous criminals from the Russian mafia, who formed in 1999 after the
fall of Communism and are not satisfied with their usual criminal activities
of theft and their lifestyle of orgies (which are tame in this movie because
getting a PG-13 rating is far more important than showing off your anarchist
spirit or any nudity). The gang is maneuvering to get WW111 on the way
through their use of a biochemical-dispensing submarine, named Ahab for
some unknown reason, to be launched in Prague. The plan is to secretly
detonate cities around the world and have them go to war with each other.
But that setup is just an excuse for this to be a dumb-assed fun film about
loud music, men prancing around with tattoos all over their body, stunt
men and a pyrotechnical crew around to experiment with the latest in daredevil
feats, and for a showcase to display the latest in the world of gun fashion.
It all makes for escapist fare evocative of the Hollywood tradition of
the pics like “The Dirty Dozen” showing the bad guy with the attitude
problem who is recruited to be on the good guy’s side and comes through
with flying colors. What’s there to think about in this film? It’s about
as subtle as an elephant waltzing around in a Czech Republic disco. Or,
as meaningless as playing the easily recognizable zither musical score
from “The Third Man” that comes into play when first in Prague,
which is only done to cleverly allude to that classic thriller and not
to make any other point.

Vin Diesel has found his niché in films
as a gruff speaking muscular covered with body tattoos kind of good-guy
outlaw, who slurs his words and has about as much charm as a greaser wolfing
down a dozen burgers in a White Castle. Diesel also comes dressed
with a logo advertising the film on the back of his neck, where he sports
a triple X tattoo. He’s named Xander Cage, but is called X by his thrill-seeking
buddies. The one-liner maven and ego-maniacal performance artist and rogue
skateboarder is made famous by having his exploits shown on the Web. He
snubs his nose at the Establishment and in the film’s opening scene steals
a prudish senator’s shiny red Corvette all because the California pol wanted
to ban music with violent lyrics. He then crashes the convertible off a
bridge into the water while he parachutes to safety, ala a Bond stunt but
done in a crass way that lacks political insight. This bad deed gets the
attention of an NSA spy agent bureau chief in Virginia, Gibbons (Jackson),
to recruit X for his next dangerous mission. The reasoning being: why send
a mouse into a den of snakes, when you can send another snake in. Gibbons,
who can easily be recognized by his kind of tattoo — a scarred half of
his face, puts X to the extreme test by shooting him with a knockout dart
and then having him placed in a diner where he’s attacked by agents disguised
as terrorists. X has no problem dealing with this exercise. On another
test he’s dropped off in the middle of a Colombian cocaine field and has
to fight his way out of there, as it takes him a long time to realize that
he’s now in a real situation.

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Since Diesel passed these tests, he’s obviously qualified to be dropped
off in Prague as a full-fledged spy (in this flick there’s no problem learning
the spy business while on the job). Diesel’s Czech Secret Service contact
will get him to the local bar where the Anarchist 99 leader Yorgi (Marton
Csokas) hangs out. X fits right into this fast crowd of psychopaths and
social deviants, and gets in solid with them by ordering 10 hot sports
cars for them to steal. Also hot is Yorgi’s mysterious sexy right-hand
woman, Yelena (Asia Argento), who has the same type of unfriendly personality
as X (which means that this is a match made for a Prague Castle, the isolated
mountain homebase for Yorgi and company). Their eventual affair, a tepid
one at best, after a bad start is about as exciting as watching heads gets
smashed against a wall. X does kiss the lady twice, which had about as
much of a romantic touch as the music of DMX and the German band Rammstein.
But he can be excused for his lack of interest, he was just too busy saving
the world — even though he wasn’t a patriot.

X completes his mission to save the world by infilitrating the gang
and getting the info of what terrorism they are planning. He relays this
by computer to Gibbons, and insists on staying put until he stops the anarchists.
So we are led to believe he also stops looking out only for himself and
strives to single-handedly save the world by stopping the high-powered
explosive submarine from beginning its worldwide attacks, in of all places
landlocked Prague.

This film should appeal to young fans of video games and older thrill-seekers
and fans of extreme sports. The film’s appeal should also go out to adults
with troubled teenager children, as they might pretend to like XXX in order
to bond with them. Others seeking some Dog Days of summer excitement, might
be better off going to their local amusement park and taking a roller coaster
ride. Still others in trouble with the law might be advised from taking
any drug tests after seeing the film, since it’s possible to get a contact
high from just watching all the speed. But if you’re a James Bond fan and
want to see a different twist on that old-school series, one with a little
looser interpretation of the spy genre, this film is probably just as credible
and as well-packaged as most of those Bond films. I liked this new type
of spy film for what it was, an unapologetic kick-ass film, and not because
I liked it. The action speaks louder than its words, in fact one may wonder
– what words!

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