directed by Antoine Fuqua
87 minutes
John Lee (Chow Yun Fat) is hired by Terence Wei to kill Stan Zedkov (Michael Rooker), a police detective, who killed his son. John accepts the job but doesn't have the heart to go through with it after he sees the cop playing with his family.
John turns to Meg Coburn (Mira Sorvino) for help. He needs documents that will help him get back to China. She agrees to help him but they are interrupted by a squad of Mr. Wei's enforcers. John escapes but Meg gets caught by the police.
Detective Zedkov lets Meg go without arresting her but warns her that the dead men in her office were Terence Wei's men. She goes back to her office anyway. John is there and forces her to come with him. They go looking for help but Mr. Wei's men catch up to them before they can find the help they are looking for.
Mr. Wei hires a couple more killers to finish the job that John Lee left undone. They take more than a few shots at John and Meg.
There are lots of gun battles. The good guys win in the end.
Thoughts
Checkmate? Really? What a let down.
I'm glad this movie isn't any longer than it is.
I like the fight scenes, which as I understand it were handled by John Woo. The rest of the movie didn't do it for me. I could tell early on that it was a bit forced. I hoped that they would stick to a formula that made sense but they didn't. I rolled my eyes a lot. It wasn't awful but it wasn't great, by any stretch of the imagination.
Notes
This is Chow Yun Fat's first American movie.
There is an extended cut of the movie which is 10 minutes longer but I don't believe that's what I saw.
This is director Antoine Fuqua's first movie. He made numerous music videos prior to this movie. He was also the director of Training Day (2003). He has more credits as a producer, since 2005, than as a director. I believe that Training Day is the only other one of his movies that I have seen.
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