BULLETPROOF MONK

Rating: 3

With a title like BULLETPROOF MONK, it’s not like we can expect a film that will be on the short list for next year’s Oscar™. Still, fans of Chow Yun-Fat will find enough here to keep them happy.
Chow is the eponymous Tibetan monk, charged with keeping safe a scroll that could spell apocalypse if it falls into the wrong hands. Those would be the Nazis, who’ve been tailing our monk with no name (shades of Clint Eastwood) for 60 years and the chase has been going on that long because the scroll stops the aging process in the one who protects is and because some Nazis just don’t know when to quit. The chase eventually brings everyone to New York, where they all run into Kar (AMERICAN PIE’s Seann William Scott), a pickpocket and martial arts fan who learned the latter by watching films at the Chinese cinema where he works. This is good for two reasons. One, the monk’s 60-year tenure as scroll-keeper is almost up and this least likely of candidates keeps fulfilling the prophecies identifying him as the successor. Two, Scott speaks very good English.
You see, this heavily plotted story is laced with leaden dialogue. This is not helped by Chow’s delivery. Watching him speak English is like watching someone take their first stab at riding a bicycle. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is, well, flummoxed. It’s good that we can focus on stuff like the Tibetan monks and their mysticism, the Nazis, with their evil blonde who makes Helga, the she-wolf of the SS look like Little Mary Sunshine, and an updated version of Fagin’s den of thieves led by a guy with too many tattoos and a fashion sense that shows an unfortunate penchant for things Scottish.
Though Chow falters with the spoken word here, he’s faultlessly fluid when it comes to fighting the bad guys. When he leaps onto a car, duster flying in the slow-motion wind, and proceeds to dispatch the enemy by lobbing bits of their own guns at them, he’s magic. When he’s showing the martial arts ropes to Kar, using Kar’s best moves against him, he’s perfection, when he looks on with Buddha-like indulgence and a twinkle in his eye as his acolyte attempts to fly, he’s got charisma to burn. In case I haven’t made the point yet, he is the reason to see this flick.
As for Scott, he’s got a pointy-faced earnestness about him that makes him endearing, which renders the whole successor plot point palatable. Plus he’s a little bit goofy with Jade (Jamie King), the bad girl he has a crush on, even as they tangle in the best martial-arts-as-foreplay tradition. It’s dopey but it’s sweet. The fact that she can and does seriously kick his booty only adds a piquant note to the budding romance.
BULLETPROOF MONK has the virtue of setting a lively pace thanks to director Paul Hunter, who until now was best known for directing music videos. It will never win awards for verisimilitude, but then that’s not why we go to see this type of movie. Instead, it takes on the look and the gestalt of an over-the-top comic book come to life with color-saturated temples, its gloomy tenements and its operatic lair for the mad scientist portion of the proceedings. It’s also fun the way it metaphorically winks at its audience every now and then as it lets us know that we’re not supposed to take any of this too seriously. Why else have an overhead shot of a Nazi railing at the heavens by yelling “Monk!” a la WRATH OF KHAN? It’s so kitschy it’s downright cute. Add in a low-gore factor and you’ve got the sort of flick that keeps reality at bay without taxing too many of your little gray cells.