Intermission: New Snipes film plot goes nowhere, puzzles critic

"The Art of War"

Directed by: Christian Duguay

Starring: Wesley Snipes, Anne Archer and Donald Sutherland

Rated: R

Every once in a while, a film comes along that is so incomprehensibly awful that I want to explain why being a movie critic isn't all fun and games.

Sure, it seems like a sweet job. Just go to a movie and then tell people what you think. Nothing could be easier.

While on the surface this seems all well and good, keep in mind that even if you don't have to pay to get into a show, two hours of your life goes by that you will never reclaim. In the 15 years I've been writing this column I've been fairly lucky.

One or two films a week, 52 weeks a year, roughly 1,000 movies and for the most part it's all been OK.

There have been good times: "Reservoir Dogs," "Fargo," "GoodFellas." There have been bad ones as well. "Fresh Horses" comes to mind and more recently, "Battleship Earth."

But when something like "The Art of War" comes along, I just start wondering why I go through the agony. I've never wanted two hours of my life back more than the ones I spent watching this incredibly ludicrous piece of work.

The cast, including Anne Archer, Donald Sutherland and Wesley Snipes, are all capable actors but how they were suckered into this mess of a movie is one for the books. From start to finish, "The Art of War" is downright awful and I can't help but think it must have looked that way on paper. Why a major studio, and name actors, wanted to do this film seems beyond reason.

Let me stop beating around the bush and get to the point.

Wesley Snipes plays Neil Shaw, some sort of covert agent working for the United Nations. His boss, Eleanor Hooks (Anne Archer), sends him on a mission to track down the assassin of a Chinese diplomat.

Without much ado, Shaw finds himself double-crossed and hung out to dry. In what attempts to be a Hitchcock-like plot scheme, Shaw finds himself the innocent man in the middle of a complicated situation. The problem here, as far as cinematic value goes, is that the situation is more convoluted than complicated.

The plot is a mishmash of clichs that ultimately goes nowhere.

That's not quite correct. It does go somewhere, and if anyone can make sense of the ending, please write and explain it to me because I haven't the slightest clue.

The title of the film is taken from a classic piece of Chinese literature, written by Sun Tsu, and its philosophies are touched upon briefly.

"Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai" was just released for the home video market and is a much better choice for a modern interpretation of Asian philosophy.

(Jim Wunderle works at Associated Video Producers and is a Springfield free-lance writer and musician.)