Intermission: New Snipes film plot goes nowhere, puzzles critic

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"The Art of War"|ret||ret||tab|

Directed by: Christian Duguay|ret||ret||tab|

Starring: Wesley Snipes, Anne Archer and Donald Sutherland|ret||ret||tab|

Rated: R|ret||ret||tab|

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. |ret||ret||tab|

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

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. |ret||ret||tab|

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

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." |ret||ret||tab|

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. |ret||ret||tab|

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.|ret||ret||tab|

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

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. |ret||ret||tab|

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. |ret||ret||tab|

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

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.|ret||ret||tab|

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. |ret||ret||tab|

"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.|ret||ret||tab|

(Jim Wunderle works at Associated Video Producers and is a Springfield free-lance writer and musician.)[[In-content Ad]]