Wednesday, April 05, 2006
Review: Extreme Heist (1999)
Were it not for the amazing stunt work in this film there would be very little to recommend it. Shot on a minuscule budget, as evidenced by the use of disused warehouses and wide open spaces for the majority of the shooting, Extreme Heist is essentially a show reel for two stunt teams. The visual quality may be poor and the narrative fairly unengaging, but the creativity and expertise of the Alpha Stunt Team and AAC is certainly adequate compensation.
Following a similar narrative formula to Drive (1996) this is something of a companion piece, co-directed as it is by that film’s choreographer Koichi Sakamoto. He and Makato Yokoyama (director of Shadow Fury (2002)) are Japanese born Hong Kong film enthusiast who came to America with a view to bringing Jackie Chan-style action to the west.
With Drive a relative failure, though a cult classic, they soon found their place on children’s television. Extreme Heist is something of an attempt to break away from the trappings of daytime television and truly demonstrate their potential, especially since Jackie Chan and Jet Li broke through in Hollywood. After years of working on the various series of "The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers" (still going since 1993) it wasn’t only Sakamoto and Yokoyama who were apparently bored, for they got two of that show’s stars, Johnny Yong Bosch and Jason Narvy, to star in their venture. Narvy appropriately plays the straight man to Bosch’s clichéd agile Asian.
Like Marc Dacascos before him, Bosch demonstrates skill and agility which screams out for more elaborate and high profile work. While Dacascos did eventually make that transition, Bosch has yet to do so. With work especially thin on the ground, I anticipate that we will never see Bosch in another film like this.
Bosch and Narvy are two ambitious but foolish criminals. Their daredevil antics and juxtaposition against more insidious foes make them endearing in that anti-hero way. But I’m not entirely comfortable with all their actions. While they only steal from other crooks, the moment when they tie up an old couple and take up residence in their home does hinder their loveable rogue status in my opinion. I can’t actually think of anything which justifies this moment, save to say that this scene, for better or worse, reminds us that these are criminals.
The action scenes which make up the majority of the film are superb, a testament to the way talented filmmakers can produce something from nothing. Action seems to have been choreographed from whatever was affordable, with shoddy shacks and cars serving as both locations and props for the performers. The stunts are both physical and vehicular, with many sequences bringing the two into close contact. Bosch fights off hordes of minions and has a showdown with the tall villain at the climax, but even in the quieter moments he adds impressively unnecessary flourishes to his actions.
The title itself is an indication of an additional aspect of diversification. Not content to sell the film solely on fights and vehicular stunts, Sakamoto and Yokoyama injected the novel aspect of extreme sports into the story by opening and closing the film with impressive skydiving sequences. The ending is especially notable, including an interesting attempt at gunplay as they plummet to earth.
But before we reach this intriguing climax, as our two protagonists are chased by the villain for possession of a typically irrelevant maguffin, they are joined by a high-kicking female character. The role of mystery woman/love interest serves to add both intrigue to the plot and another figure to root for in the fight scenes. Such is now typical for almost all films of this type, like Bulletproof Monk (2003) and Cradle 2 The Grave (2003). Consider, finally, the conceptual similarities to Shanghai Knights (2003). The performers skilled in fighting are once again both Asian and the useless white buddy is similarly a cocky, blonde joker with an eye for the ladies. At different ends of the spectrum, Extreme Heist and Shanghai Knights both achieve similar goals. They make us gasp at the technical achievement and endurance of the unsung heroes of the action genre.
Were it not for the amazing stunt work in this film there would be very little to recommend it. Shot on a minuscule budget, as evidenced by the use of disused warehouses and wide open spaces for the majority of the shooting, Extreme Heist is essentially a show reel for two stunt teams. The visual quality may be poor and the narrative fairly unengaging, but the creativity and expertise of the Alpha Stunt Team and AAC is certainly adequate compensation.
Following a similar narrative formula to Drive (1996) this is something of a companion piece, co-directed as it is by that film’s choreographer Koichi Sakamoto. He and Makato Yokoyama (director of Shadow Fury (2002)) are Japanese born Hong Kong film enthusiast who came to America with a view to bringing Jackie Chan-style action to the west.
With Drive a relative failure, though a cult classic, they soon found their place on children’s television. Extreme Heist is something of an attempt to break away from the trappings of daytime television and truly demonstrate their potential, especially since Jackie Chan and Jet Li broke through in Hollywood. After years of working on the various series of "The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers" (still going since 1993) it wasn’t only Sakamoto and Yokoyama who were apparently bored, for they got two of that show’s stars, Johnny Yong Bosch and Jason Narvy, to star in their venture. Narvy appropriately plays the straight man to Bosch’s clichéd agile Asian.
Like Marc Dacascos before him, Bosch demonstrates skill and agility which screams out for more elaborate and high profile work. While Dacascos did eventually make that transition, Bosch has yet to do so. With work especially thin on the ground, I anticipate that we will never see Bosch in another film like this.
Bosch and Narvy are two ambitious but foolish criminals. Their daredevil antics and juxtaposition against more insidious foes make them endearing in that anti-hero way. But I’m not entirely comfortable with all their actions. While they only steal from other crooks, the moment when they tie up an old couple and take up residence in their home does hinder their loveable rogue status in my opinion. I can’t actually think of anything which justifies this moment, save to say that this scene, for better or worse, reminds us that these are criminals.
The action scenes which make up the majority of the film are superb, a testament to the way talented filmmakers can produce something from nothing. Action seems to have been choreographed from whatever was affordable, with shoddy shacks and cars serving as both locations and props for the performers. The stunts are both physical and vehicular, with many sequences bringing the two into close contact. Bosch fights off hordes of minions and has a showdown with the tall villain at the climax, but even in the quieter moments he adds impressively unnecessary flourishes to his actions.
The title itself is an indication of an additional aspect of diversification. Not content to sell the film solely on fights and vehicular stunts, Sakamoto and Yokoyama injected the novel aspect of extreme sports into the story by opening and closing the film with impressive skydiving sequences. The ending is especially notable, including an interesting attempt at gunplay as they plummet to earth.
But before we reach this intriguing climax, as our two protagonists are chased by the villain for possession of a typically irrelevant maguffin, they are joined by a high-kicking female character. The role of mystery woman/love interest serves to add both intrigue to the plot and another figure to root for in the fight scenes. Such is now typical for almost all films of this type, like Bulletproof Monk (2003) and Cradle 2 The Grave (2003). Consider, finally, the conceptual similarities to Shanghai Knights (2003). The performers skilled in fighting are once again both Asian and the useless white buddy is similarly a cocky, blonde joker with an eye for the ladies. At different ends of the spectrum, Extreme Heist and Shanghai Knights both achieve similar goals. They make us gasp at the technical achievement and endurance of the unsung heroes of the action genre.
# posted by Richard Hawes @ 4:44 AM 
