re:mote voices

Title: Unleashed [aka. Danny The Dog]
Cast: Jet Li, Morgan Freeman, Bob Hoskins, Kerry Condon
Director:Louis Leterrier

Danny has been raised by gangsters since he was a child. They fed him, clothed him, treated him like a dog and trained him to kill. However effective the enforcement business is, it is not without its problems, and increasingly people keep trying to circumvent Danny. Which is how he comes to be wondering lost, convinced his master is dead. Bumping into a piano tuner, he is reminded of something from his childhood. Luckily the piano tuner and his adopted daughter take Danny in, and realising that he has serious developmental problems they strive to help him.

Unleashed, or Danny The Dog as it is originally titled, is an interesting role for Jet Li to be given. Li has done many memorable martial arts films from Hong Kong. But since he started doing films in Hollywood, his output has been particularly lamentable. Working with Zhang Yimou on Hero no doubt raised his profile once again, providing him with the opportunity to appear in this film penned by Luc Besson.

Interestingly Unleashed is filmed and set in Glasgow. So for this Glasgow audience there were a number of familiar sights to be seen. Though this fact actually got a little annoying at times, the audience having a constant conversation about how they recognised things, and just where is that. On the other hand, unless you are familiar with Glasgow, you probably wouldn't even notice. There is only one point where a reference is actually made to where the film is located, and for the most part I would be hard pushed to think of any point where you actually hear someone from Glasgow in the film. Bob Hoskins plays Li's gangster boss, and plays it as London as he plays everything else. Morgan Freeman plays the piano tuner, in Glasgow from New York while his step-daughter attends music school. Even the woman in the supermarket seemed to be more Cockney than Glaswegian. How bizarre.

Unleashed is flawed, when was the last time you saw something that wasn't, but it is certainly something a little bit different. Rather than by the book thrillers like Romeo Must Die or Cradle II The Grave, Unleashed is more interesting than that. Dwelling more on the aspects of a child raised to adulthood in an abusive and restricted manner. Which gives us a curious combination of the "stranger in a strange land" scenario, where the character finds everything new and fresh, and the "fight movie", where the character goes through a series of fights.