Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever Review

Ballistic: Ecks Vs Sever is a mystery. Not the movie, just the name. It makes as much sense after watching the movie as it does before watching it.

Ballistic is a dumb action movie. Actually, in the genre of dumb action movies, this one is a dumb action movie. The mindless violence begins right at the start when Sever (Lucy Liu), a rogue DIA agent, abducts Micheal, the son of DIA's chief honcho, Robert Gantt (Gregg Henry). Something and all happens, and Ecks (Antonio Banderas) comes in on the whole shannigan when he learns that his wife, who he believed was dead, was well... not. Gant is trying to get his son back from Sever, trying to kill Ecks as an aside, and trying (painfully hard) to look cool.

From this point on, Ballistic becomes eckstremely bad. In fact it gives you the yeck feeling in the deepest pit of your stomach. Barely 10 minutes into it and you know that the 'Vs' in the name is quite pointless. A little more time and you know that expecting cool/breathtaking action sequences would be, too. Unless watching Lucy Liu kick butt with the grace of hopping sparrow (and looking like one) is your idea of action. Really, she just about manages to not fall flat on her beak, er... nose.

Ecks and Sever suddenly, in one lightening instant, go from grabbing at each others necks to saving each others asses, leaving you hoping it was the other way round, because, by now, you will take any sorta action. Well, in defence of the movie, everything in it moves really fast. Except the bullets that Sever dodges, all in a day's work.

To say that Ballistic has a story would be a gross exaggeration and an act that even its publicists did not indulge in. The whole deal is about 15 car pileups, and the plot has holes that are big enough to allow a few 15 car pileups through. There is, however, this little thing which is a nanotechnology-robot that can be darted into the bloodstream and detonated at the press of a button from a remote-controlled device. This constitutes the excuse for 1 hour 31 minutes of mind-numbing nothing.

Some movies are made for IMax screens. Some movies are made for 35mm screens. This movie is made for no reason at all. If you add up all the dialogues from Ballistic, stash them back-to-back and read them out - you will be through before you can cook Maggi.

Ballistic probably deserved a few Razzies the year it hit screens in the West, 2 years ago. But its singular most outstanding achievement is this - it is the only movie which got called one of the worst movies of the year, in two different years!