I like The Replacement Killers. It isn’t a great film. Hell, it isn’t even a good film. But it’s stylish. And the two leads (Chow Yun-fat as John Lee and Mira Sorvino as Meg) are great. But the story is stupid and it depends upon the viewer thinking like a gamer. None of the characters are real except for those primary to the plot. Everyone else is a non-player character (NPC).
As is typical of action movies, we have a professional assassin who has ethics. In this case, he isn’t willing to kill a cop’s kid. In the film, a cop kills a crime boss’ son, so, in retaliation, the crime boss hires an assassin to kill the cop’s son. It’s very Code of Hammurabi.
In general, we don’t like the idea of a kid getting killed for what his dad did. But this is an action film, and there are two ways that make the idea more palatable.
- The cop (Detective Stan Zedkov) is played by Michael Rooker. He’s a fine actor and works great in hateable roles. But Hollywood has spent a fair amount of effort trying to get audiences to like him. And it just ain’t there. And in The Replacement Killers, he plays an asshole. Even Alan Rickman couldn’t have made the character likeable.
- The kid is annoying in the extreme. It’s hard to imagine that Zedkov would be all that upset to lose him.
Of course, the film gets worse. It isn’t enough to simply not kill the kid. Meg convinces Lee that he must protect the kid. And thus begins the bloodbath. Most sources claim that there are 38 total on-screen deaths. Some of these are not the direct result of John Lee’s refusal to kill the kid. But there are more deaths. I once tried to count the deaths myself but I gave up because of the theater scene, which implies but doesn’t show any actual deaths.
But let’s consider that one scene. If the heroes didn’t show up at the last minute, one person would have died — the kid. Instead, I believe several died. It doesn’t matter that we don’t see them. In fact, it makes the point clearer: it doesn’t matter than other people died because none of them are real.
There are also two characters who we care about: Eddie Rawlins (Frank Medrano) and the priest (James Wing Woo). And they are both killed off-screen because the filmmakers also see them as NPCs — just ones who need to provide a small amount of exposition.
And the truth is, I don’t think any of this matters. As I’ve said, I enjoy the film. Thirty seconds of Mira Sorvino sexily counterfeiting documents to “Makes Me Wanna Die” is worth the price of admission. So I wouldn’t even bring it up except for one thing.
The film takes its conceit seriously. It cares about that kid. But it doesn’t care about any other character. In fact, it’s kind of surprising that John Lee and Meg don’t end up dying — but happy knowing that the annoying kid will grow up to be as big an asshole as his dad.
But again: The Replacement Killers is fun. And the extended cut (about 9 minutes longer) includes more dialogue scenes, which improves the film immeasurably. (But my criticisms stand.) Here is the extended cut, if you are in the mood.
The Replacement Killers (1998) poster via Wikipedia under Fair Use.
