Opens Friday, Feb. 28
Like a well-oiled machine, "Cradle 2 the Grave" purrs along at maximum efficiency, delivering fights, chases, explosions and comic interludes with cool precision. The cast is handsome and athletic. The pace is swift. And cinematographer-turned-director Andrzej Bartkowiak establishes a look of scruffy urban chic that plays nicely off the calibrated chaos of the movie's action stunts. The movie is soulless, though, in conformity with the current Hollywood mind-set that fears any intrusion of humanity or sentiment into its "thrillers."
Movies like "Cradle 2 the Grave" are more designed than written. Playing to the prevailing tastes of the youth market, especially males, the Joel Silver production fuses martial arts with hip-hop, Jet Li with DMX. It's the super-cool cinema of stoic action heroes, tough women, pitiless villains and stunts choreographed to a hip-hop beat. "Cradle", aiming to be little more than a crowd-pleaser, should scoop up above-average boxoffice coin from several demographics.
Li has a singular presence onscreen. Taciturn and determined, he projects tremendous strength but little inner life. He dispatches opponents without breaking a sweat and steers clear of emotional connections to other characters. While he is undeniably charismatic, rooting for Li in a film is like rooting for a computer in a chess match.
So Silver and writers John O'Brien and Channing Gibson wisely give "Cradle" two protagonists to carry the load. The first is Tony Fait, played by rap artist and actor DMX, who with a posse of high-tech thieves pulls off a complex heist in downtown L.A. that nets a puzzling cache of black diamonds. The other is Li Su,'s a Taiwanese superagent whom early in the movie someone accurately characterizes as a "kung fu James Bond."
When the diamond theft results in the kidnapping of Fait's young daughter, the two would-be adversaries, Fait and Su, join forces to go up against the ruthless Ling (Mark Dacascos). Ling, Su's former partner turned freelance international crook, seeks the diamonds for their industrial use as a weapon of mass destruction.
Each thief has his own butt-kicking consort. Fast-rising Star Gabrielle Union is Fait's second-in-command, equally adept at karate chopping an opponent and creating sexy diversions to distract unsuspecting men while Fait is breaking and entering. Black-belt bad girl Kelly Hu is Ling's heartless hottie who hates kids, cops and just about anything else that doesn't translate into cold cash.
Rounding out the lively cast are Drag-On's all-purpose go-to guy; Anthony Anderson's smooth-talking machinist, who creates comic diversions of his own; and Tom Arnold, in an amusing switch on racial roles in old Hollywood movies, as the white guy supplying comic relief.
A simplistic plot manages to squeeze in more than a few action set pieces. There's a chase through downtown streets, alleys and stairways between police cars and DMX on a quad bike that concludes in a series of rooftop jumps; a tussle between heroes and thugs in an alley, where they must dodge ravenous Dobermans, and DMX somersaults off a wall; a battle at an illicit fight club that throws Li into a cage against 15 freestyle combatants; and a climax that has a number of face-offs, the most notable being between Li and Dacascos, after a helicopter crash, that takes place in a ring of fire. If all this leaves viewers more drained than exhilarated, that's the nature of this particular beast.
Filming in Long Beach and downtown Los Angeles locations, cinematographer Daryn Okada and designer David F. Klassen create a new kind of film noir that turns much of Southern California into a latter-day Wild West. Cops are useless, crime rampant and an underworld of clubs and fight venues exists if you know the right door to pass through. It's a dark and industrial milieu, brimming with menace and corruption, where the distance between cradle and grave can be very short. A soundtrack from John Frizzell and Damon "Greases" Blackman that includes several recording artist signed to DMX's label is a major selling point.
CRADLE 2 THE GRAVE
Warner Bros. Pictures
Silver Pictures
Credits:
Director: Andrzej Bartkowiak
Story by: John O'Brien
Screenwriters: John O'Brien, Channing Gibson
Producer: Joel Silver
Executive producers: Ray Copeland, Herg Gains
Director of photography: Daryn Okada
Production designer: David F. Klassen
Music: John Frizzell, Damon "Greases" Blackman
Co-producers: Susan Levin, Melina Kevorkian
Costume designer: Ha Nguyen
Editor: Derek Brechin
Fight choreographer: Corey Yuen
Cast:
Su: Jet Li
Tony Fait: DMX
Ling: Mark Dacascos
Tommy: Anthony Anderson
Sona: Kelly Hu
Daria: Gabrielle Union
Archie: Tom Arnold
Miles: Drag-On
Vanessa: Paige Hurd
Running time -- 101 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
Like a well-oiled machine, "Cradle 2 the Grave" purrs along at maximum efficiency, delivering fights, chases, explosions and comic interludes with cool precision. The cast is handsome and athletic. The pace is swift. And cinematographer-turned-director Andrzej Bartkowiak establishes a look of scruffy urban chic that plays nicely off the calibrated chaos of the movie's action stunts. The movie is soulless, though, in conformity with the current Hollywood mind-set that fears any intrusion of humanity or sentiment into its "thrillers."
Movies like "Cradle 2 the Grave" are more designed than written. Playing to the prevailing tastes of the youth market, especially males, the Joel Silver production fuses martial arts with hip-hop, Jet Li with DMX. It's the super-cool cinema of stoic action heroes, tough women, pitiless villains and stunts choreographed to a hip-hop beat. "Cradle", aiming to be little more than a crowd-pleaser, should scoop up above-average boxoffice coin from several demographics.
Li has a singular presence onscreen. Taciturn and determined, he projects tremendous strength but little inner life. He dispatches opponents without breaking a sweat and steers clear of emotional connections to other characters. While he is undeniably charismatic, rooting for Li in a film is like rooting for a computer in a chess match.
So Silver and writers John O'Brien and Channing Gibson wisely give "Cradle" two protagonists to carry the load. The first is Tony Fait, played by rap artist and actor DMX, who with a posse of high-tech thieves pulls off a complex heist in downtown L.A. that nets a puzzling cache of black diamonds. The other is Li Su,'s a Taiwanese superagent whom early in the movie someone accurately characterizes as a "kung fu James Bond."
When the diamond theft results in the kidnapping of Fait's young daughter, the two would-be adversaries, Fait and Su, join forces to go up against the ruthless Ling (Mark Dacascos). Ling, Su's former partner turned freelance international crook, seeks the diamonds for their industrial use as a weapon of mass destruction.
Each thief has his own butt-kicking consort. Fast-rising Star Gabrielle Union is Fait's second-in-command, equally adept at karate chopping an opponent and creating sexy diversions to distract unsuspecting men while Fait is breaking and entering. Black-belt bad girl Kelly Hu is Ling's heartless hottie who hates kids, cops and just about anything else that doesn't translate into cold cash.
Rounding out the lively cast are Drag-On's all-purpose go-to guy; Anthony Anderson's smooth-talking machinist, who creates comic diversions of his own; and Tom Arnold, in an amusing switch on racial roles in old Hollywood movies, as the white guy supplying comic relief.
A simplistic plot manages to squeeze in more than a few action set pieces. There's a chase through downtown streets, alleys and stairways between police cars and DMX on a quad bike that concludes in a series of rooftop jumps; a tussle between heroes and thugs in an alley, where they must dodge ravenous Dobermans, and DMX somersaults off a wall; a battle at an illicit fight club that throws Li into a cage against 15 freestyle combatants; and a climax that has a number of face-offs, the most notable being between Li and Dacascos, after a helicopter crash, that takes place in a ring of fire. If all this leaves viewers more drained than exhilarated, that's the nature of this particular beast.
Filming in Long Beach and downtown Los Angeles locations, cinematographer Daryn Okada and designer David F. Klassen create a new kind of film noir that turns much of Southern California into a latter-day Wild West. Cops are useless, crime rampant and an underworld of clubs and fight venues exists if you know the right door to pass through. It's a dark and industrial milieu, brimming with menace and corruption, where the distance between cradle and grave can be very short. A soundtrack from John Frizzell and Damon "Greases" Blackman that includes several recording artist signed to DMX's label is a major selling point.
CRADLE 2 THE GRAVE
Warner Bros. Pictures
Silver Pictures
Credits:
Director: Andrzej Bartkowiak
Story by: John O'Brien
Screenwriters: John O'Brien, Channing Gibson
Producer: Joel Silver
Executive producers: Ray Copeland, Herg Gains
Director of photography: Daryn Okada
Production designer: David F. Klassen
Music: John Frizzell, Damon "Greases" Blackman
Co-producers: Susan Levin, Melina Kevorkian
Costume designer: Ha Nguyen
Editor: Derek Brechin
Fight choreographer: Corey Yuen
Cast:
Su: Jet Li
Tony Fait: DMX
Ling: Mark Dacascos
Tommy: Anthony Anderson
Sona: Kelly Hu
Daria: Gabrielle Union
Archie: Tom Arnold
Miles: Drag-On
Vanessa: Paige Hurd
Running time -- 101 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
- 2/28/2003
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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