By Matthew Essary (Twitter: @WheelsCritic)
If you had told me six months ago that there would be a film that comes out this year best described as “PREDATOR but with martial arts”, I’d be intrigued. If you then went on to tell me that it would feature action movie legend Tony Jaa (ONG BAK) and perennial cinematic tough guy Frank Grillo (CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER) in supporting roles, I’d be hyped. After all that if you finished up by letting it slip that Nicolas Cage (CON AIR) was in it as well playing a crazy, samurai hobo; I think I would be frothing at the mouth to see this thing, whatever it was.
Well, that film is JIU JITSU and while it has all of the elements mentioned above; things that sound like someone dipped directly into my subconscious and made an action film just for me pulled from what they found there, the actual finished product is pretty lackluster.
Let me back up, JIU JITSU is the latest collaboration between martial artist Alain Moussi and writer/director Dimitri Logothetis. Their previous team-ups resulted in the rebooted KICKBOXER franchise that sits at two entries with a third on the way. Both of the finished KICKBOXER films share common traits: they are packed with beloved genre actors, talented martial artists, and lots of fight scenes. They also suffer from thin, dopey plotting and questionable acting when action isn’t the main focus. JIU JITSU is more of the same only this time with surprisingly worse results.
JIU JITSU is about a man (Moussi) who after losing his memory discovers that he is part of a secret order of martial artists tasked with protecting the world from an alien invader that reappears every six years to challenge the Earth’s best warriors. They have to face this alien in combat to the death. As long as they fight bravely, even if they all die, the mysterious alien will return to space after the battle is over, leaving the rest of Earth unharmed. If the warriors refuse to fight however, then the planet will be invaded and destroyed.
I mean …sure why not? That plot is as good a reason as any to string together fun sci-fi moments and exciting fight scenes. The problems with JIU JITSU though start to become apparent right from the beginning of the film. Moussi’s amnesiac is found in Burma and taken to a local US military base where he is questioned and rehabilitated by Myra (Marie Avgeropoulos, THE 100). These scenes are meant to invest us in his journey of discovery but they all flat. Moussi is a gifted screen fighter but he struggles with any acting that doesn’t rely fully on his physicality. He’s asked to carry a lot of the drama in JIU JITSU and he’s just not up to the task at this point in his career.
These early scenes really drag the beginning of the film down until Moussi is rescued from the military base by one of the members of the secret warrior order, Keung (Jaa). This leads to the first big action scene of the film and arguably it’s most impressive. The camera becomes Moussi’s point of view as they battle their way out of the base. It’s an impressive bit of action filmmaking that showcases Jaa’s amazing acrobatic ability and his ferocious Muay Thai fighting style in a way that feels innovative and fresh.
After that, Moussi is reintroduced to the rest of the team set to face the alien invader, led by Grillo’s knife fighter, Harrigan. It’s clear the filmmakers were going for a “men on a mission”-vibe in how the team members were presented here with their diverse looks and weapons choices but, except for Juju Chan (WU ASSASSINS) as the love interest of our protagonist, they leave almost no lasting impression on the audience. Yes, somehow JIU JITSU makes Frank Grillo flat and uninteresting. Which I honestly didn’t think was possible.
The only one who survives the blandness on display is, of course, Nicolas Cage. He plays Wylie, a disgraced former member of the order who hangs around giving the lead advice and explaining the more confusing plot points. Cage is acting in a completely different film than the rest of the cast for most of JIU JITSU and frankly, it seems like a much more fun version of the film than the one we ended up with.
Questionable acting and bland characters are not unusual elements in martial movies, though. Acting and plot usually aren’t priorities for low budget action films, after all. The focus is on the action, as that’s what sells, and the film has a lot going for itself in that department. The team is slowly picked off by the alien invader in scenes that are very reminiscent of 1987’s PREDATOR but with a MORTAL KOMBAT flavor mixed in. Add to that a subplot where the soldiers from the military base, led by Rick Yune (DIE ANOTHER DAY), are trying to capture the alien baddie and you have a lot of setups for intricate action scenes filled with martial arts mayhem. Which JIU JITSU, with its cast of incredible screen fighters, delivers on.
Unfortunately, the clarity of the action isn’t as high as the audience would expect based on Moussi and Logothetis’ previous films, though. The camera at times is a bit too shaky, some moments of important physicality, like the unsheathing of a weapon, for example, are obscured through odd camera placement. Painfully obvious body doubles are also used to make some of the fights more acrobatic when relying on tension and the actual abilities of the actor would likely have made the sequences stronger. Cage’s fight scenes are especially hampered by this. Anyone who has seen Cage’s battle-ax skills in 2017’s MANDY knows that he can hold together a weapons-based fight sequence that doesn’t need added flips and tumbling to make it interesting.
The logic of the action scenes also drags them down more than they should. The characters routinely make the worst possible choices when battling the seemingly invincible alien. They come across as completely ill-prepared for a situation they have supposedly been training for years to be able to handle. Suspension of disbelief is needed in every film to a point but when the actions on-screen are so baffling as to be distracting, that’s a fundamental issue with the script that can’t be glossed over.
Clearly, there is a lot wrong with JIU JITSU. On top of the things I have already mentioned, the sets look cheap, the film is full of truly ugly “comic book”-style transitions to move the audience from one scene to the next. There is also a badly inserted comic relief character, played by Eddie Steeples (MY NAME IS EARL), who just seems to pop up at random to deliver mostly unfunny dialogue before disappearing again. Speaking of characters dropping in and out of the film at random, JIU JITSU’s biggest sin may be completely sidelining Tony Jaa for large chunks of the film. He is there at the beginning and is then largely absent until after the final action scene where he wanders in for the happy ending right before the credits roll. From the way it was filmed, it feels like they forgot Jaa was even in the film and then realized at the last minute he needed to be included and all they could put together was haphazard inserts of him smiling.
JIU JITSU is deeply flawed but even with that undeniable thought, the obvious love for martial arts and action filmmaking shines through. So, it’s hard to dismiss it completely. It just feels like such a missed opportunity for something truly special and that’s a shame. (2/5)
To find out where this film is available to stream, click here: Just Watch