Breaking News

Breaking News starts with a 7 minute long single take that goes up and down in a building and then goes into a huge gunfight, stunts, and then cuts to a different shot of an explosion. How can I not enjoy a film with that? I have no idea, so I enjoyed the film. It's utterly ridiculous, with hundreds and hundreds of shots (not quite a John Woo 10,000 bullets) and a fairly low body count, but style to spare. Of course, it's far more accurate that they can't hit anything with pistols fired wildly and while running, but it does seem a little ridiculous that they couldn't maybe possibly hit once. Plus, Cheung has a bit of Terminator to him that seemed a little unrealistic. Anyway, Johnny To does an amazing job with the film, messing with the audience's expectations, although he never quite figures out a real reason for all of this, even as he seems to have a little to say about the interconnected media and how that affects reporting of crime. If you've ever watched CNN or any other 24 hour news channel in the middle of the day, you'd realize just how worthless they are (I watched CNN for a while this week where they were tracking a horse that had fallen down and they were sending a rescue crew, complete with helicopter footage. It's a horse. Once they get injured, the humane (horsane?) thing to do is to kill it, because they really don't do well when injured), and the putting on a show becomes more important to the police than actually doing the right thing some times. The film is style, and nothing much more. But that first scene (and the remaining part of that gun fight is about as good an opening shot since The Player, and makes me highly recommend it to anyone looking for a Heat-like cops and robbers film, although it isn't nearly up to that level. And you have to love the Beckham poster.