‘Crisis’ of Imagination
Whatever you do, don’t watch the original film first.
Crisis Negotiators
Director: Herman Yau • Writer: Herman Yau, based on the screenplay by James DeMonaco, Kevin Fox
Starring: Lau Ching-wan, Francis Ng, Philip Keung, Michael Miu, Michael Chow, Alan Yeung
Hong Kong • 2hrs
Opens Hong Kong June 13 • IIB
Grade: B-
Director Herman Yau Lai-to has never met a motorised vehicle, construction site or glass curtain wall he couldn’t find reason to blow up, bless his heart, and in his latest, Crisis Negotiators | 談判專家 he naturally finds a way to blast all three. The film about a PD hostage negotiator who becomes the hostage taker after being framed for embezzling money from the force’s disability fund is classic commit-a-bunch-of-crimes-in-order-to-clear-my-name-in-another-crime action fodder, and by Hong Kong action standards Yau’s turned in a tighter script than normal. Huh? What’s that you say? Oh, right. It’s tighter because it’s based on F Gary Gray’s surprisingly effective 1998 thriller, written by James DeMonaco and Kevin Fox. In The Negotiator, a pre-Motherfucker™ Samuel L Jackson is framed for killing a fellow cop investigating the fraud, who’s talked off the proverbial ledge by a pre-sex crime Kevin Spacey (who’s awesome and goddammit!). If you haven’t seen it, don’t, because the comparison does Crisis Negotiators no favours.
Which is not to suggest this spin is devoid of charms. The always reliable and welcome Sean Lau Ching-wan and Francis Ng Chun-yu – Hong Kong’s Affleck & Damon – bring their singular bromance chemistry to bear on the Jackson and Spacey roles. There are some truly inspired moments of levity, and yeah. There’s a solid story at the foundation. But sloppy writing (how is a 24-hour gym closed?) clangs on occasion, as does a lack of local specificity that would have justified a nearly note-for-note duplicate.
Looks familiar
We meet hostage negotiators Cheuk Man-wai (Lau, wisely reigning in Jackson’s scenery munching) and Tse Ka-chun (Ng) in dirty 1993 Hong Kong, when an angry, emotionally distraught couple (producer Andy Lau Tak-wah and Kearen Pang Sau-wai) barge into a welfare office and threaten to blow it to smithereens if they’re not told where their son has been taken. Cheuk and Tse are kind of a tag team, but when the situation goes wrong, Tse drops off the force. Flash forward to 1996. Cheuk’s tipped off to corruption within the department by a colleague, Cheung Wing-ka (Kenny Wong Tak-ban, Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In), and when Cheung turns up dead, Cheuk is the prime suspect in his murder. Backed into a corner (they’re always backed into a corner) Cheuk marches into the infernal affairs office of Lee Chun-ki (Michael Chow Man-kin, Where the Wind Blows, with whom Lau shares one of the film’s funniest moments) – who he suspects is involved in the rot – and winds up with Lee, Superintendent Law (Michael Miu Kiu-wai), low level fraudster Lo Dik (Alan Yeung Wai-leun, The Sparring Partner, stepping in for Paul Giamatti!) and Lee’s assistant Maggie (Cherry Ngan Cheuk-ling) as hostages. Now or in 1998, you know where this is heading.
Crisis Negotiators cleaves super-closely to the source material, which would be fine were it to take even a few chances with the peripheral details. Why are we still in the 1990s (fine, fine, I can guess) when there could be all sorts of techy fun by relocating the film to the 2020s? In Gray’s film, the central players were strangers but here they’ve worked together before, a point that’s been left to dangle with no significance. It’s made clear the last case inspired Tse to leave the job, and that’s an interesting bit of character shading that goes largely unexplored – and is well within Ng’s abilty to exploit. Structurally we don’t need the second hostage crisis, and by staying so laser focused on Cheuk and Tse, the supporting players get little to do. David Morse played the Philip Keung Hiu-man part in the original, and his character muddied the waters in the way you want that character to, and it gave the film texture. But Yau’s gift for creative set pieces (you’ve never seen an overpass used quite like this) and exploiting the city’s infrastructure for chases, and a solid (if rote) grasp on the fundamentals of boom-boom filmmaking make this the Yau action thriller to see this summer. Trust me, you don’t want to fuck with Customs Frontline… — DEK