2003 - PAYCHECK, pretty poor John Woo action film.

Ben Affleck has invented a machine that can read the future, he uses it to find out that Paycheck will be another film that destroys his career until he starts to reinvent himself as a director.  Uma Thurman uses the machine to find out that the producers will make her wear a really bad haircut throughout the film.  The director John Woo  also uses the machine to find out that this film will finally finish off his reputation as a once stylish action director.

The whole idea of a scientist getting his memory erased but leaving clues to find out what happened to him is I hate to say it again something that Alfred Hitchcock could have really developed.  John Woo doesn't seem to have a clue what to do with this concept except stage a lot of indifferent action scenes.

I suppose it was impossible for Woo, Affleck, and Thurman to turn down Steven Spieldberg's company Dreamworks.  In Hollywood you don't say no to Steven Spielberg even if it won't do anything for your career.

Paycheck is just another empty action film. 

119 minutes.

1992 - HARD BOILED, probably John Woo's best film

John Woo's last interesting film before he sold out and moved to Hollywood so he could make a series of mediocre action films.  Hard Boiled takes the police thriller and mixes it up with lots of Woo's famous over the top violence.

Chow Yun-fat is Inspector Tequila the hard boiled cop who is out to bust a triad gang smuggling guns, Tequila gets mixed up with an undercover cop, and the bullets and explosions begin to fly for almost two hours.  Everything builds to the final big shootout in the hospital.  For reasons to silly to be properly explained or understood the Triad is shipping arms out of the hospital.

No question Woo is a master of staging tremendous action scenes and shootouts.  But credit should also be given to those amazing Hong Kong stuntmen who bring all these over the top scenes to life. 

The other thing Hard Boiled has going for it is Chow Yun-Fat who really holds this film together.  Without him this would simply be a collection of gun battles, as it is it's still one shoot out too many.

For all it excesses, this is still a dazzling action film.

126 minutes.

2001, 2002 - THE HIRE, glorified, car commercials.

The marketing department at BMW got the brilliant idea to hire 8 top directors and have them shoot short films with the actor Clive Owen racing around in different model BMWs.

AMBUSH, by John Frankenheimer, a good car chase film.  Frankenheimer had directed Grand Prix and Ronin so he knew how to film exciting chases.

CHOSEN, by Ang Lee.  Also a fairly decent car chase film.  Probably the only interesting thing in it, Lee's little inside joke about The Hulk his big budget flop was the next film he directed.

THE FOLLOW, directed by the artsy fartsy Wong Kar-Wai, aims to be a mood piece but is just boring.

STAR, directed by Guy Ritchie and starring his then wife Madonna.  Madonna looks pretty bad and the film is about the driver embarrassing and humiliating her.  Almost prescient considering how Madonna and Ritchie's marriage ended.

POWDER KEG, directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu wallows in it's stylization and pretentiousness, no fun.

HOSTAGE, directed by John Woo, only goes to prove that Woo should stick to filming scenes with Chow Yun-fat shooting thousands of bullets into guys instead of staging car chases.

TICKER, directed by Joe Carnahan, probably the best short film of the 2nd season, to bad Carnahan couldn't have brought this kind of interest to The A Team.

BEAT THE DEVIL, directed by Tony Scott.  The most annoying of all these short films, an attempt at a supernatural/ comedy/ action short film.  Filmed as usual by Scott like he had irritable bowel syndrome.

 Ambush and Ticker are probably the only two worth checking out.  This series is kicking around on YouTube.

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