Late at night, on certain subscription cable channels, they show soft-core porn. I’ll admit it. I watch it. You probably do to. It’s okay. You can say so. What always trips me up about this stuff though is the way they insist on showing 10-20 minutes of “story” between the good stuff. I’ve always wondered if they think we care. Surely they’re smarter than that. It’s almost like their nodding saying “Look we know what you want and we’re gonna give it to you. But we gotta dress it up and pretend that’s not the only reason you’re watching or else we may as well just be a porn channel”. Hey man, whatever you gotta do. It’s cool with me. Just so long as when the good stuff finally rolls around, It was worth the wait.
The Protector is like a soft core porn. It insists on making you wait through boring and nonsensical story before giving you what you want. But when it finally gets to the good stuff it was DEFINITELY worth the wait
The movie is about a young Thai man who owns a couple of elephants. One day he and his father go to a festival to see about giving one of the older ones to a king. Somewhere along the way the young mans father is shot and the elephants kidnapped. There was more to the story than that but to be honest it isn’t really that important. If you’re laying down money to see this movie there’s only one real reason you chose to. And that’s because you want to see some mind-blowing action. I’m very happy to say that The Protector delivers in spades.
There are stunts in this movie that will leave you smiling. Struggling to comprehend what you have just seen. It takes a few seconds to let it sink in that yes, it actually happened. A human being actually just did what you just saw. For real. No wires. No lame cgi trickery. Just straight up mind blowing athleticism. Seeing this sort of thing happen for real is one of the biggest adrenaline rushes any action fan could hope for. There is something so thrilling about seeing one guy do things that ought to be beyond the realm of human capability and it instills a sense of real wonder and astonishment. Of course this all due to the incredible work of the film’s star, Tony Jaa. Get used to that name. It’s a name that all action fans are going to be intimately acquainted with over the next few years. With his first major American release under his belt and his star on the rise it’s only a matter of time before we see him filming in English with huge budgets and a token black sidekick.
I could try to describe some of the things that you’re going to see in this one, Like going from a standing jump to a full black-flip and kicking out a streetlight 7 feet above him ALL IN ONE MOVE Or the incredible scene where he fights his way up 8 flights of stairs for like 5 minutes ALL IN ONE TAKE, but it wouldn’t do any good. It wouldn’t convey the astonishment you feel at seeing this stuff actually happen.
The Protector is not for everyone. You gotta be a real action junkie to get hyped on this stuff. But if you are, and you can sit patiently through the all window dressing they tacked on to make this a “movie”, then you are in for one HELL of a treat.
7/10
