Unleashed (DVD)

...curious indeed.

Unleashed is curious in the first instance because, in spite of the fact that the vast majority of the cast has a London accent, the film is set in Glasgow. This wasn't initially something that occurred to me, but as soon as the action switched to the very famous jewellery arcade, I realised at once that we weren't in London. To Glaswegians, of course, it will be an entirely offensive observation, born of the fact that ...
...comes off, the Dog is Unleashed and the rest is fairly inevitable. It's a grim world. Full of violence, swearing, unhappiness and brutality, Danny's only glimmers of humanity are the smiling teddy bear that peers down onto him and the colourful A-Z book, where he gets to stare longingly at the P for Piano and L for Love pages. We don't even know whether he can talk. Nobody talks to him, you see. Orders are barked, criticisms are hollered and insults ... more

Danny is a slave to his uncle Bart. Literally. Reared like a caged animal, Bart exerts complete control over Danny via a simple collar worn round the young man's neck. With the collar in place, Danny is completely submissive, doing and saying nothing and literally waiting for the command to go into action. When the command comes, it is a simple one. The collar is removed and Danny is told to "Get em!". And so he does. Punching, kicking and screaming until every one of his targets is on the floor. It's a very effective technique, and one that has kept Bart in business for a very long time. After one particularly fraught episode, Danny's potential is spotted by an unscrupulous businessman who lures Bart with the promise of huge winnings on the underground fight network. Yes, for Bart business is good. For Danny, it's pretty miserable, but that's nothing new.

Until an unexpected moment of salvation releases Danny for the grip of his cruel "uncle". Released into the streets, Danny seeks out the only other person he knows - a blind piano tuner called Sam. Sam takes him in and along with his stepdaughter, the three become very closely-knit, teaching Danny the delights of simple pleasures like music and cooking. It seems that Danny has finally left his former life behind.

Sadly, the trouble with trouble is that a trouble shared isn't always a trouble halved. Sometimes, it's just a trouble shared. And soon Danny's old life comes crashing in on his new one.

Luc Besson has a thing about childhood and children who end up in places they really ought not to. Look at Matilda in Leon. Cast out onto the streets, she ends up making friends with a hitman. In Unleashed, Besson returns to his favourite material and presents us with the tale of Danny The Dog. It's a story about man's cruelty to man. If men are a product of their upbringing, what happens when they aren't brought up at all? Can you really rear a child into being a killing machine? For Besson, the message is fairly clear cut and to be perfectly honest, you needn't really sit through a ninety-minute film to get to the point. If you do, however, you'll find something rather curious indeed.

Unleashed is curious in the first instance because, in spite of the fact that the vast majority of the cast has a London accent, the film is set in Glasgow. This wasn't initially something that occurred to me, but as soon as the action switched to the very famous jewellery arcade, I realised at once that we weren't in London. To Glaswegians, of course, it will be an entirely offensive observation, born of the fact that a mainstream audience would be deemed incapable of understanding a Scottish accent, hence even the old lady in the cornershop is a Cockney. Perhaps the director (Louis Leterrier) should have considered setting the film in London's East End, given that Bob Hoskins (Bart) seems completely out of place in any other setting. But ultimately, it doesn't really matter because Glasgow was probably cheaper to use and this film certainly isn't about where things happen.

The film's early sequences are a visual representation of Danny's life. Filmed in a drab, colourless, lifeless filter, the action switches from one identical sequence to another, Wherever they are, whoever they are with, the collar comes off, the Dog is Unleashed and the rest is fairly inevitable. It's a grim world. Full of violence, swearing, unhappiness and brutality, Danny's only glimmers of humanity are the smiling teddy bear that peers down onto him and the colourful A-Z book, where he gets to stare longingly at the P for Piano and L for Love pages. We don't even know whether he can talk. Nobody talks to him, you see. Orders are barked, criticisms are hollered and insults are thrown, but nobody ever says anything that justifies a response. To all intents and purposes Danny might as well be dead.

But then colour comes into the film and into Danny's life. As he shares his new life with Sam and his stepdaughter Victoria, the colour literally starts to seep back into the film. Suddenly, the city isn't such a gloomy place and even the simplest of pleasures seem to light up the screen, like a yellow melon or a warm bowl of soup. It's a simple, yet startlingly effective technique that plays to the audience like a simple, hypnotic concerto. It's just a shame that, rather deliberately, we are all simply waiting until the colour drains from Danny's face once more and his past life comes back to haunt him.
If you are expecting another Jet Li martial arts movie. Unleashed probably isn't quite what you would think but there are similarities with other movies. The protectiveness of Kiss of the Dragon is there and the affection of opposites attract is just as strong as it was in Romeo Must Die. What Besson and Leterrier have done, however, is try to make something a little more thoughtful. Hey, in this world, it's not cool to kill, OK? The trouble is that the fact is this is exactly what the audience wants Jet Li to do. Is it only Uncle Bart who is willing the Dog to smash his opponents' brains in with a sledgehammer, when that's exactly what he shouldn't do? Indeed, is that a suggestion that Unleashed is perhaps cleverer than you might think? What if this is not just about Danny being unleashed? Perhaps it's about the fact that inside every single one of us is a Dog waiting to be unleashed?

It sounds deep and in more accomplished hands, it probably could have been. The finished product, however, is not really so much thoughtful and inspiring than disjointed and actually quite dull. Like the line on a heart rate monitor, things surge into action at regular intervals, only to die down to a flat line once again whilst Danny has a tender chat with the piano tuner, or learns what ice cream is like if you eat it in one big chunk. True, some of these things should be (and often are) quite endearing but its not the subject matter that we expect from Jet Li and I think this may be part of the problem. Imagine if Steven Seagal did Shakespeare. It just wouldn't feel right, would it? That's partly the way that I felt about Jet Li in Unleashed, and this certainly isn't helped by the lurch from bile and venom to sickly sweet sugar - and back again. Jet Li was always going to struggle with some of the dialogue and whilst this can be argued in deference to his harsh upbringing, it does often make things a little uncomfortable.

The action is unimpressive too. File under "seen it all before". Perhaps the only fresh thing about it all is the slapping noise made when Li's fists connect with other human skin and bone but more often it's so fast and furious that you can't really see what the hell is going on. There's the usual high-speed choreography of fists and occasional implements and it's all as accomplished as normal - and just as familiar too. The violence is ferocious and quite extreme, however, and the film's 18 certificate is quite justified.

Bob Hoskins (Bart) is more caricature than character, motivated by reasons unknown to be callous, cruel and unpleasant and in keeping with previous gangster roles, he's very good at it too. He can sneer for England that's for sure. His growing frustration and fury over this loss of control of Danny makes for entertaining, if not rather cringeworthy viewing and his fortune plays roughly as you might expect it to.

Morgan Freeman is a welcome, if not slightly surprising choice for the blind piano teacher, Sam, Freeman seems to opt more for the endearing end of the character scale these days and in Unleashed he exerts a gentle wisdom and superiority across the proceedings that is as irritating as it is welcome. The blind bit is a bit gratuitous for my liking - why could someone only show Danny kindness because they couldn't see him? - but Freeman is as capable as ever and injects life into the character in a way that few other actors could.

Jet Li could / should probably get full marks for effort, which would then equate to something like "average" for achievement. Of course, he moves effortlessly and punches the hell out of everyone like a little Chinese dwarf on speed, but then you knew that before you read this review. Despite the fact that his character is far less superficial than other roles, he still manages to make things very one-dimensional and I started to become frustrated at a performance that veered too close to the farcical end of things for the larger part of the team. I still believe that Jet Li has great verve and screen presence but not enough to do Danny the Dog the justice he might have deserved.

Would I recommend Unleashed? Probably not. It's an interesting and often stylish piece that for the first thirty minutes will certainly keep you intrigued. Thereafter, however, it drifts into territory that its leading star can't really manage and above all else, it also becomes rather dull. Neither action nor drama, it treads a shaky line in between that ultimately left me rather cold.

Not so much Unleashed as Let Out One Afternoon And Left To Potter Round the Garden.
 

...less