Connected
Year of release: 2008
Genre: action/thriller
Director: Benny Chan
Action director: Nicky Li
Producers: Albert Lee, Jiang Tao, Kevin Yung, Benny Chan
Writers: Alan Yuen, Benny Chan, Xu Bing
Cinematography: Fletcher Poon, Chan Kwok-Hung
Editor: Yau Chi-Wai
Music: Nicolas Errera
Stars: Louis Koo, Nick Cheung, Barbie Xu, Liu Ye, Eddie Cheung, Fan Siu-Wong, Vincent Kok, Raymond Wong
Rated IIB for violence
DVD available for purchase at www.sensasian.com
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By all accounts, Connected should be total crap. It's a remake of 2004's Cellular, a total bomb at the box office that can't even limp on to becoming a staple of TNT or Spike's late-night lineup. We get a textbook example of over-acting from the lead, Louis Koo. Oh yeah, there's a lot of obvious and annoying product placement as well. Surprisingly though, Connected ends up being an enjoyable (if totally brain-dead) action/thriller that's worth checking out.
The unfortunately named Barbie Xu (seriously, did her agent think that name would make her be taken more seriously as an actress with westerners?) stars as Grace, a software programmer is kidnapped and thrown into a room where her only link to the outside world is a broken phone. Dialing random numbers, she gets a hold of Bob (Louis Koo), a deadbeat dad on the way to the airport to try and patch things up with his son.
Bob doesn't believe Grace's story at first, but after hearing someone killed on the line, he immediately jumps to her aid. Transforming from a nebbishly debt collector to a bad ass, Bob unveils a conspiracy about crooked Inetrpol agents led by Fok (Liu Ye). Powered by Pepsi Max and Motorola cell phones, Bob ends up teaming up with a disgraced cop (Nick Cheung) to save the day.
A major point of how much you might enjoy Connected is the ability to turn off that part of your brain which controls logic. As in, if these awesome Motorola cell phones -- available now at local retailers at very reasonable prices -- apparently don't have call-back functionality, so Bob can't find out where Grace is calling from.
But, of course, driving like a maniac and pulling a gun on random people will eventually unravel the mystery, the major piece of which could have easily been distributed via Motorola's brand new and super-fast 3G network to the authorities, and would have probably made this the shortest "blockbuster" on record. But yet Bob still struggles to get the information to the cops, probably because he likes looking lovingly at the ultra-modern styling on the Motorola MotoQ.
If you can put things like that, as well as "minor" stuff like actual characterization and plot development, aside, then Connected offers a lot of brainless fun. Nicky Li, a long-time behind-the-scenes veteran, has been making himself into being one of Hong Kong's best action directors, and does a great job here. Connected's two major action scenes, a frantic chase through Hong Kong and a shootout at its' airport, are some of the best stuff the former British colony's film industry has put out in years.
It's a shame the rest of the movie can't match the originality and power of the action sequences, because we could have had a true classic on our hands here. But overall, Connected provides enough thrills during its' running time that even the most disgruntled viewer will be should be able to forgive the expository shortcomings if they're willing to put down their thinking cap for the sake of a good time.
RATING: 7
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