BEFORE: While last night's film couldn't really be called a Western, it did take place on America's frontier, at the time. That's got to be enough of an excuse. Linking's made from Daniel Day-Lewis, who was in "Nine" with Kate Hudson, who was also in "You, Me & Dupree" with Owen Wilson (last heard in "Fantastic Mr. Fox"). No, I'm not proud of that one.
THE PLOT: A Chinese man who travels to the Wild West to rescue a kidnapped princess teams up with a train robber, and the unlikely duo takes on a Chinese traitor and his corrupt boss.
AFTER: I can learn something from almost any film, but it doesn't always have to be very introspective, or about some conflict like the French-Indian War. Sometimes a movie just needs to show me how much FUN it can be, and that's the case here.
While I'm not a big fan of Jackie Chan (last heard in "Kung Fu Panda"), I've come to appreciate Owen Wilson through the Wes Anderson films, like "The Royal Tenenbaums" and "The Darjeeling Limited". He brings the same sort of persona, the new-agey ladies man type, to his role here as an outlaw - but in doing so, he turns it into perhaps the first post-modern Western.
There's a great deal of humor here, mostly of the inside-joke variety, since the film pokes fun at specific Westerns, and at the genre as a whole. Chan's character is named Chon Wang, a homonym of sorts for John Wayne, and he's told that it's a "terrible cowboy name". The corrupt sheriff is named Van Cleef, an homage to "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly". And so on - the movie's winking at us the whole time. Jeez, even the title is a play off of "High Noon".
Packed with more action and stunts than you can shake a (chop)stick at - the movie keeps rolling onward through fight after fight, except for a drag during the obligatory "training" sequence. That was ironic for Wilson's character, Roy, to train Chan's character to shoot a gun, since he can barely hit a target himself. The time would probably be better spent with Wang teaching Roy some of his moves.
NITPICK POINT: Late in the film, Roy reveals his real name, and is told that it also is a "terrible cowboy name". However, it's the name of a very famous real Western hero. To stick with the John Wayne joke, wouldn't "Gary Cooper" have worked better?
NITPICK POINT #2: In the final shoot-out/karate fight at the mission, there are THREE other Chinese guardsmen - yes, they had to guard the princess, but couldn't ONE of them helped our heroes in the battle?
Also starring Lucy Liu (last seen in "Chicago"), Xander Berkeley (last seen in "The Fabulous Baker Boys"), Roger Yuan, Walton Goggins (last seen in "The Bourne Identity").
RATING: 7 out of 10 "Wanted" posters (I'm subtracting one for the Hal Needham-like outtakes at the end)
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