3/5 Homage to 70s Cop Flicks Strictly Routine...
  by Benjamin J Burgraff (Las Vegas)
Director Tony Giglio says, in the 'Making Of' Special Feature for "Chaos", that he wanted to recapture the spirit and gritty, pre-CGI 'look' of the great 'Cop' movies of the 1970s ("The French Connection", "The Seven-Ups", etc.), and technically, he succeeds, quite admirably...but the film lacks equally important factors to the earlier films' success; characters you care about, and a truly novel 'spin' to the traditional plotline. "Chaos" is predictable, with little character development, relying on the stars' established screen personas to carry the story, and the end result is routine, at best.

When a team of masked criminals rob a major Seattle bank, the leader (a swaggering Wesley Snipes) informs the police surrounding the bank that he wants disgraced cop Jason Statham to serve as the negotiator. Statham, who'd been involved in an earlier, fatal hostage negotiation, is pulled off suspension, teamed up with brilliant young detective Ryan Phillippe, and attempts to resolve the situation...but things fall apart, explosively, and the gang escapes in the fire and smoke. As the press again berates Statham, Phillippe begins putting the pieces together, revealing a far more complex scheme than a simple robbery...leading to a 'surprising' climactic revelation (which you'll figure out long before he does!)

The film isn't terrible (there's one really good chase, early in the film), but as you've likely seen all this before, it isn't terribly involving, either. Phillippe takes the acting honors, Statham gets in a few good one-liners (but less of his 'signature' physical action than his fans may like), and Snipes mugs his way through another 'villainous' role.

It should have been better!






2/5 Simply Dull
  by Mark Eremite (Seoul, South Korea)
After watching this film, I exited the theatre (this title was just released in Korean theaters) and hit shuffle on my iPod, which currently has a little over 8000 songs on it. The first song to pop up was "Chaos" by U.N.K.L.E. off of their album, Psyence Fiction. No fooling. Aside from the fact that it was an extraordinary coincidence, I also mention this because it was the most entertaining part of my movie-going experience, and it happened after the flick was over.

The song is only okay, but it's certainly better than the film, a tepid "action" movie that claims to have a story built on the Chaos Theory once made so famous by Jeff Goldblum's character from Jurassic Park. The idea is that chaos is never truly random, and that in even the most cluttered of incidents, patterns emerge.

The theory is debatable, especially if this movie is meant to be one of its proponents. After some exposition-heavy credits, several somber looking bank robbers (led by Wesley Snipes) take over a major branch of American Global in Seattle. When hostage negotiations begin, the bad guys demand that disgraced officer Conners (Statham) be given the helm. Unfortunately, as soon as he's put in charge, things go sideways.

Aiding Conners is a newly appointed detective played by Ryan Phillipe, who refuses to act in every scene, relying almost exclusively on this pouty, petulant look he can do with his poofy lips. Phillipe's character begins to steadily assemble the clues, sorting through the baffling array of red herrings to some supposed truth about chaos that the bad guys may or may not be trying to prove. Scattered about the meandering script are a few lukewarm "action" sequences (including one of the dullest vehicle chases I've seen in a long while) and lots and lots of cringe-worthy dialogue. In fact, when one of the officers announces that "he wasn't just a better cop than you; he was also a better man," I suddenly realized I was watching a bad movie.

In addition to all of this, there are stupid emotional back stories, unbelievable twists of misdirection, and even some insulting flashbacks as Phillipe puzzles it all out, in case the audience still doesn't get it. Chaos, as a condition, can have its crafty corners and intriguing entanglements. It can, in its own way, be beautiful. In fact, of all the adjectives I think of when chaos comes to mind, "boring" is none of them, which makes me think this film is seriously misnamed.

4/5 Good action movie!
  by Maria Augusto (Santos, Brazil)
It's the first Jason Statham movie I watched. In my opinion, it's a good police story involving a bank robbery in Seattle. Jason is Det Quentin Conners, who after being suspended due to a wrong action during a hostage rescue, is called back to work in this case. His new partner is Det Shane Dekker played by Ryan Philippe, young but with a privileged intelligence. Even though we might call it an action movie, there is much twists and turns in the plot as well as a clever plan to get money from the bank in an unusual and modern way, which riddle Shane is willing to solve against the bad guy Lorenz, played by Wesley Snipes. Watch for the smart story and some very surprising scenes. Enjoy!

5/5 This was great misdirection
  by Lemas Mitchell (Chengdu, Sichuan (China))
Short Attention Span Summary:

There is none for this movie, since the plot was so involved that any attempt to summarize it would violate the spirit of brevity of a Short Attention Span Summary.

The writers did a great job in keeping this plot from becoming hackneyed with so much misdirection.

Example: The man who was shot at the beginning was a black man-- and so we assumed that Wesley Snipes character was going to be playing the Vengeful Relative's role. As it turns out, this was not true.

Example: Jason Stataham's character we initially thought was the good guy, but it turns out that he was the bad guy.

The acting was good and Wesley Snipes was so obnoxious that it seemed that he had a genetic gift for playing such roles.

This was a good investment, and would have been worth an evening movie ticket.

5/5 Chaos
  by David A. Smith (Webberville, Mi, USA)
Jason Statham & wesley Snipes are awesome in this action mysery movie. this is such a good film. if you watch this movie you'll have to pay close attention. this movie rocks