I've seen the
The Replacement Killers twice now - once back in Canada, and again the other night. I didn't remember that I'd seen it before until nearly halfway through the movie, which should be a good indication of how much impression it made on me.
I'll tell you though, I do like the movie. I enjoyed watching it the first time, and I enjoyed it just as much the second. It didn't, however, stick with me either time. If The Replacement Killers was a meal, it would be a lovingly prepared and beautifully served Chinese banquet - and in an hour, I'd be hungry again.
Although I normally feel discussing intimate details from a movie is inappropriate in a movie review because giving away characters and plot simply spoils the movie, this movie is old enough that I think anyone who is going to watch it already has. This review is aimed more at encouraging people to re-watch it with a more critical eye (and maybe mine it for ideas for their games).
There are three characters in The Replacement Killers that I feel are interesting enough to discuss:
John Lee is the killer in question who is being replaced. He is first represented as a tough, utterly professional and very skilled street soldier. I don't call him an assassin because that word means, to me, subtlety, and Lee is anything but inconspicuous in the one contract kill we see him perform - he walks through the middle of a jammed bar, reaches the target, strikes a pose and "tells" the target about his impending doom, then sends him and his bodyguards to hell. While he is not at all subtle, he is, as I said above, very professional. He wears gloves (in how many movies do we see supposed experts not taking this simple precaution?), and he is careful to eliminate only his target and his target's goons. No innocents are hurt. When he is finished, he disappears like a puff of smoke.
As the movie progresses, we see Lee's character expand. While he remains tough and professional throughout, his motivations become apparent and so does his sense of honour. If I was to compare this character to an RPG character, I would say he is a stripped-down street samurai from Shadowrun - without any of the munchkin crap.
In contrast with John Lee are his replacements. Where Lee is professional, they are machines. Lee kills his target and any threats to himself; the replacements (whose names we never learn) simply kill. They kill without remorse or hesitation - I got the impression they enjoy their task, but I'm uncertain why. They are not that interesting - in fact, their lack of speaking and the preciseness with which they perform their roles is what gives the sense that they are more automatons then people. They serve as a well done foil to John Lee, highlighting his character. In an RPG, villains of this sort could be interesting; if your PCs are the wild type, throw in some cold, calculating pros - or else toss in some characters whose crazy antics make the PCs look professional. A foil shouldn't steal the show though. A foil should highlight the a character rather than overshadow it, and The Replacement Killers does this well.
Meg Coburn is the third character I want to discuss. (I consider both of the replacements to really be one character, rather than two.) I can't make up my mind how I feel about her. On the one hand, she feels inconsistent to me; on the other hand, a consistent character is a static character, and Coburn is anything but static. In the end, it feels like the writer and the director each had different ideas for the character, and they settled on an unsatisfactory compromise. In gaming terms, Coburn is a good example of a character whose player can't settle on a concept.
The other characters in The Replacement Killers are well done - interesting, but not remarkable. Many would make good bit-part NPCs (the old man who tips off Lee about where the 2nd hit will occur springs to mind).
The setting is another thing about The Replacement Killers which I'm ambivalent about. The visuals are pretty and exotic, and set a tone, but for me, that was part of the problem. There was never any sense of "normal" (even the scene outside the cop's home wasn't normal; who really lives in a place like that?). Instead there was a collection of cultures mashed together with no transitional space between them. I found this to be too much - especially the black ghetto scene. That felt... redundant. One culture too many.
The last thing I want to discuss is the music and sound effects. This was the part of the movie that I enjoyed the most. Antoine Fuqua (the director) was brilliant when he decided to cut out many of the loud, intense sound effects, choosing instead to play relatively soft, soothing music. This finished describing John Lee's character, in fact defining the character. Terrible things happened, yet the sensitivity of the character remained, heightening the sense of wrongness that this man should be doing these things.
And never once was the sound of a gunshot muffled.
As I said at the beginning, this movie doesn't stick to me. I like it, I respect the skill that went into its creation, and I recommend it highly (especially as a mine for ideas). Just expect to be hungry again in an hour or so.
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(Due to spamming, old forum discussions are no linked.)