Cradle 2 The Grave

Paul Greenwood reviews

Cradle 2 The Grave

• Cert:
• Running time: 101 minutes
• Year: 2003
• Released: 28th March 2003
• Widescreen Ratio: 2.35:1
• Rating: 7/10

Director:

Andrzej Bartkowiak

(Cradle 2 The Grave, Exit Wounds, Romeo Must Die)

Cast:

Su: Jet Li
Tony Fait: DMX
Tommy: Anthony Anderson
Ling: Marc Dacascos
Sona: Kelly Hu
Archie: Tom Arnold
Daria: Gabrielle Union
Miles: Drag-On
Vanessa Fait: Paige Hurd
Chi McBride: Chambers

I’ve been waiting for five years for Jet Li to make a decent American film.

While he was by far the best thing about Lethal Weapon 4, the film itselfwas pointless and uninspired. His subsequent western efforts have rangedfrom the tolerable (Romeo Must Die) to the turgid(Kiss of the Dragon)to the idiotic(The One)and frankly I was starting to abandon hope of ever seeing a good one.

Given this track record, it’s probably no coincidence that he recentlyreturned to China to make a film for the first time in years – the by allaccounts breathtaking Hero. In the meantime we have Cradle 2 The Grave inwhich he co-stars with one of the co-stars of the previous film of thisfilm’s director who, as it happens, also directed Romeo Must Die. Well, mywait is over, because C2TG is terrific.

The plot has been seen plenty times before but it’s serviceable, involvingas it does jewel thieves, international terrorists and kung fu cops. WhenTony Fait steals a cache of black diamonds, he has no idea what he’sgetting mixed up in. As it turns out, the diamonds are in fact a new formof weapons grade plutonium and soon everyone is looking for them, fromlocal gangsters to dangerous arms dealers to a mysterious Chinese agent.Things turn ugly when Fait’s young daughter is kidnapped and ransomed inexchange for the stones. This proves a tricky proposition as he is nolonger in possession of them and so must team up agent Su who is trying toget them back for the Taiwanese government.

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The biggest plus points as I see them are twofold – an appealing cast and asense of humour. Even Tom Arnold has some funny moments, for goodness sake.Dacascos makes for a genuinely villainous villain (it all happened veryquickly, but I’m sure I saw him dealing out what may be cinema’s first everdeath-by-lobster impaling) and the other supporting players do much morethan just make up the numbers. I must confess to having no idea who yourman DMX is other than he was in the aforesaid Exit Wounds which, as itfeatured the mighty Steven Seagal, I avoided on point of principal, but onthis evidence he can volley bad guys up and down alleys with the best ofthem.

Clearly, the biggest selling point was always going to be the action, andC2TG delivers big time. The fights are crisp and bone crunching and thestunts are exciting and fresh, if sometimes a little over-edited. One earlysequence, where Li drops down a building from balcony to balcony, is themost eye poppingly audacious thing I’ve seen in quite a while.

Li is obviously a legend, and he’s good enough here to spend the majorityof the film auditioning for the remake of Bad Day at Black Rock, given that90% of the beatings he administers are done with one hand in his pocket.When he does finally stop playing with his loose change, you know someserious name taking is going to ensue, and the scene in which he faces upto several dozen bare knuckle fighters inside a cage is a cracker. If itall gets a bit too preposterous towards the end and the heisters withhearts of gold thing is a little hard to swallow, you shouldn’t worry somuch, ‘cos it’s been damn good fun. Oh, and answers on a postcard if youknow why the hell it’s called Cradle 2 The Grave.

Review copyright © Paul Greenwood, 2003.E-mail Paul Greenwood

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