The 5th Commandment review
Predictable, terrible acting, lackluster action scenes - just a few euphemisms i could use to explain this film. The gangsta-ass music didn't even save it.
The story - an Asian husband and wife get killed by an assassin and said assassins nemesis (Jazz Man) saves their young child (Chance) to raise him to be an assassin. A montage follows as you'd expect, except for one part where Jazz Man just shoots Chance to 'finish his training', probably the best and only unpredictable part in the movie. The rest of the story is pretty meh, with some cheese in there for good measure. With a few subplots that are uninspiring.
For a movie that loved reincorporation, bringing pretty much every little thing back to the extent of having 'flashback-reminders' laced through it, the title really had nothing to do with it. Certainly The 5th Commandment was mentioned during the film, it just really didn't feel like it had enough to do with the film to warrant the title 'The fifth commandment'. Chance's brother had given up 'the old way' of assassination and chance never gave it up, so while the idea was there, it just seemed like a lame title for the film with no real depth.
Just as predictable as the storyline were the 2 dimensional characters. The world's most obvious evil-guy assassin; what bad guy doesn't have an oversized scar on his face who at one point in the movie gets through the world's most dumb security/metal detector checkpoint by distracting 3 guards with a Zippo lighter... The main character had one expression pretty much the entire film and no depth like an assassin should, take 'the crying freeman' for example, assuming the director wanted him to play it this way he just didn't really, ... act good.
How this film made it into the top-renters is a little beyond me, perhaps it's one of those films you hire to watch and see how bad it is. There's really no martial arts in the film (except for one decent fight right at the end of the film where 'no guns are allowed or everyone dies in a massive explosion', thankfully), yet it's in the martial arts section. The acting in this movie is purely terrible for the most part. The ending wasn't too bad and did tie things together reasonably nicely; however I think I was just relieved to see the film end, for the most part.
To surmise this review of The 5th Commandment I can't rate this film higher than a 3.5/10, maybe it is worth watching to see how bad it is?
