It’s rare when 2 stars best known for action films appear in a movie together. The most obvious reason for this is probably ego. Who will be the good guy? Who will be the bad guy? Who gets the most screen time? Who gets more Benjamins? With these type of obstacles it is very tough to pair a couple of actors of equal stature within the genre. CHAOS manages to team one performer who has slowly been on the rise (Jason Statham) with another who has been in rapid decline (Wesley Snipes). Unfortunately the end result of this endeavor may as well have featured Ted Danson in a battle of wits with Taye Diggs.
The setup for CHAOS is as routine as dental floss. Statham plays Conners, a disgraced cop on suspension for a hostage situation that went horribly wrong. He’s happily living the disgraced cop hermit lifestyle when a bank robbery in downtown Seattle turns into yet another hostage ordeal. He’s called back into service by request of Snipes, the leader of the bank robbers, who identifies himself only as Lorenz and has a score to settle with Conners. Before being put back on the force Statham is assigned to work with a young “college boy” detective played by Ryan Phillippe. Statham’s attempt to thwart the bank robbery goes awry resulting in many explosions and all of the perpetrators escaping.
From this point on Statham and Phillippe go about tracking down the robbers and the motives behind their actions. There are two ways to make a standard plot like this work, infuse the characters with crackling dialogue or blow the audience away with memorable set pieces. Writer/director Tony Giglio doesn’t have the script abilities of Shane Black nor the visual talents of John Woo, and he doesn’t let a scene in the flick go by without constantly reminding everyone of this fact. Though I suppose it’s unfair to hold him to very high standards when his previous major gig behind the camera was SOCCER DOG.
While watching CHAOS it seemed like there were a lot of scenes that were a little off. While chasing one of the robbers, Phillippe commandeers a citizen’s motorcycle. We’ve seen that plenty of times but what’s screwed up here is that Phillippe puts on a helmet before starting his pursuit. Granted, Phillippe is supposed to be the more conservative figure in this piece but there’s something about an overly safety conscious cop that just isn’t exciting in a film like this.
In the last half hour CHAOS does make an attempt to break free of all the clichés it had built up previous. An event takes place that some might find ballsy but left me with the sense that the film had played its last hand too early. There’s nothing wrong with a good twist, but the twist in CHAOS just seals its fate as a film that is 2/3 a lift of LETHAL WEAPON with the last third lifted from THE USUAL SUSPECTS. It’s a combination that might work in more capable hands, but not here.
Both Statham and Phillippe look fairly bored through most of the running time. Come to think of it, Phillippe is basically doing a variation of his role from CRASH only now he’s wearing a suit. Ironically, the guy who does seem to be having a good time in this is Snipes. He doesn’t quite reach DEMOLITION MAN levels of evil glee, but he also doesn’t have that “Can I just go to my trailer and bang two Laotian whores” look that he was sporting in BLADE TRINITY.
Of all the missed opportunities in CHAOS the most glaring would be the lack of a Statham Vs. Snipes fight scene. I can’t fathom why you would go to the trouble of casting these guys and not have them trade a few kicks. To add insult to injury there is a fight scene between Snipes and Phillippe. Utter chaos.
