Star
Wars doesn’t arrive until next Wednesday, but already its looming
presence
hangs over the local movie theatre.
How else can we explain the sparse
crowd at Carmike Friday night, despite not one but three new films
opening? Clearly, a lot of people are
waiting for their Yoda fix.
But when Star Wars fever subsides,
you could do a lot worse than to take in Jet Li’s martial-arts morality
play, Unleashed. Less morally and
visually complex
than last year’s Hero, Unleashed nevertheless
satisfactorily contrasts two
worlds and comments obliquely on such weighty issues as the importance
of
culture and the relative role of nature versus nurture.
Danny (Li) has been brutalized from
childhood by his “uncle” Bart (Bob Hoskins), a ferocious extortionist
who has
molded the orphaned boy into an unstoppable enforcer under his control. “You’ve basically turned a man into a dog,”
one of his would-be victims says, and it’s true – Danny is a pit bull
in human form.
For aficionados of martial arts violence,
the first 15 minutes of the movie are crammed with excessively violent
encounters as Bart and Danny make their collections, Danny remaining
inert
until his uncle/master undoes his dog collar and tells him “Get ’em.”
Scene after scene shows Danny’s
degradation. He is forced to live in a
cage beneath Bart’s seamy headquarters, wolfs food uncooked from the
can, and
bears insults from everyone in the gang.
A feral boy, he is only marginally more bestial than the other
inhabitants of the Glasgow
underworld where Bart operates.
That
Danny might be capable of something more is hinted by his wistful
exploration
of a tattered alphabet book, where “L” is for “love,” “K” for “kiss,”
and “P”
is for “piano,” and by Danny’s desperately longing stares out the
window of
Bart’s car as they make their rounds.
Through much of the early going, Li’s
facial expression alone conveys his character, as the abused Danny is
almost
completely non-verbal. Escaping Bart’s
control, Danny connects with a blind piano tuner, Sam (Morgan Freeman);
only under the gentle care of Sam and his
step-daughter Victoria (Kerry Conlon) does he emerge into language:
first
single, monosyllabic words, then fully formed sentences – the first of
which states
his identity: “My name is Danny.”
Sam and Victoria, an aspiring
pianist, inhabit a gentler world, an airy and civilized realm of music
in
explicit contrast to the bestial, claustrophobic underground of
extortion and
fight clubs Danny is used to. The scenes
of Danny’s gradual emergence from the static nullity of his bestial
captivity are
beautifully developed, culminating in his first-ever laugh – a sign of
the
potential for joy in the most abused human being.
Before Danny, Sam, and Victoria can
settle into peaceful family life, of course, the other world will try
to
reclaim him; but once an animal has learned to be a man, it’s not that
easy to
turn him back into a killing beast. More
vicious fighting, always pitting the solitary Li against multiple foes,
ensues
before order is restored.
The film benefits from strong
performances by the supporting cast.
Hoskins is one brutal villain, his pure white suit
insufficient to mask
the animality that dominates his soul; Freeman is his polar opposite,
all
gentleness and good humor, who believes people and pianos need to be
treated
the same way, with gentle tenderness rather than physical pounding.
Best
of all is Condon as a geeky teenager in frumpy clothes, short-cropped
hair, and
a full set of braces who teaches Danny to be human – nicely symbolized
when she
finally removes the collar that has kept him enslaved, and his
frightened
stiffness slowly recedes. Though the
film has all the graphic violence of its genre, it ultimately comes
down, as of
course it must, on the side of humanity and peace.
This
review
appeared
in the Aberdeen American News on May 15, 2005.