B


The Corruptor is a movie from the times in which Chow Yun Fat still bothered to appear in American action flicks playing a variation of the badass characters he has played in the John Woo flicks that made him famous. It was Fat's American follow-up to his Hollywood debut The Replacement Killers (which was a great fun action flick). Nowadays, when Chow Yun Fat appears in an American flick you get something like Dragonball: Evolution.

The Corruptor, as the title already suggests, deals with corruption within the police unit dealing with organized crime in Chinatown in NYC. This kind of a plot has been done to death before and The Corruptor doesn't bring much new to the table. But what it does bring is a take that is well-made enough to keep the viewers engaged. That can be mostly attributed to two things which do go hand in hand.

First of all, there's the aforementioned star of the film - Chow Yun Fat. he displays enough charisma, humor, gravity and just simple badassery to keep the viewer rooting for his character up until the end. Unlike in The Replacement Killers, his character is not dead serious all the time, but actually has his nice light moments of humor. His facial expressions in certain scenes are just great. He is also excellent in the film's numerous action scenes which include cool shoot-outs featuring his two guns trademark.

Second is the film's setting in Chinatown which gives the film a slightly exotic vibe that it uses to its fullest effect. I am also kinda positively biased towards the film's dealing with Chinese triads, so this was an interesting aspect for a typical corrupt cops flick.

On the other hand, there's Mark Wahlberg in one of his more wooden performances. Seeing him in that film shows how much his acting has actually improved over the past ten years. That was him at the beginning and he leaves no noticeable mark whatsoever. Brian Cox turn is short and he still gives his character more memorable moments than Wahlberg during the entire film.

The director James Foley (also responsible for a classic like The Perfect Stranger) direct the film in a rather mundane manner. The screenplay also doesn't offer much new (besides a pretty nice twist about Wahlberg's character in the second half of the film). It is a serviceable cop thriller with a great actor leading it.