BALLISTIC: ECKS VS. SEVER

Only a handful of films have the "honor" of being considered the worst film ever. Of course, there are hundreds of horrible films out there – actually, there are lots of even worse films than this one –, but our new subject got the title in many lists: Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever (USA/Germany, 2002).

I must say, this is not the worst film ever (at least in my opinion). I can quote a lot of worse films right now (You Don’t Mess with the Zohan, Bewitched, The Forgotten etc.) but I’d rather stick to this one for now. So here goes my short review about it.

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The story is... pretty silly, actually. Jeremy Ecks (Antonio Banderas) is an ex-FBI agent who gave up his job after his wife died. After years out of the action, he accepts another task attracted by the possibility of getting back in contact with his wife – apparently, she’s not dead as he thought...

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And Sever (Lucy Liu) is a... special agent, or something. A master in every single way of combat/war, she can defeat any enemy – I mean *any* enemy, even if he’s 6,5 feet tall and is pointing a gun against her. A warning straightaway: don’t expect much sense of reality.

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She kidnapped a young boy who’s apparently the son of Robert Gant, a big shot millionaire. So there you have it: Ecks will work with the FBI trying to rescue the kid, while dealing with his wife’s comeback; and Sever will... pretty much just kick ass and fight.

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To tell you the truth, I really didn’t care about the plot or the characters. It was a little redundant about the kid (“who are his parents?”) and everybody’s background story. Sever was the only one who had a remotely interesting past. And that’s it: other than that, only the action scenes can entertain.

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The acting was pretty lousy, too. Banderas gave a bad dramatic performance and he didn’t even do much stuff in the action scenes. And Liu was not a prize either: her face expression never changed (it was just that same blank look). At least she (or her stunt) did an acceptable work in the action parts.

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By the way, that’s the only thing interesting about Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever: the action sequences. They’re not that exciting or that well elaborated, but they kept the film going. There’s a little bit of everything here: fist fights, explosions, car chases, machineguns...

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They may not have been 100% believable or realistic, but they were pretty well done, not as crappy as I’d expect. (And not as strong to earn an R-rating: I think PG-13 was already good enough.) But hey: this is not a classic action flick, just a forgettable way to spend 1h30.

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I repeat: not the worst film ever. I’d give this a 5/10 rating. It has a lot of defects and it’s pretty trashy, but acceptable. My vote is 2.

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>> ZÉ B. [2/5]

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IMDB link: HERE