Stills from "Crackdown"
How long have you not sat in a movie theater and watched a thrilling cop fight?
As the only seedling of the police and gangster theme film in 2020, the appearance of "Crackdown" is bound to attract the attention of many action movie fans. The densely packed, climactic crime genre film has always been a major motivator for audiences to enter the theater, and "Crackdown" is no exception. Just looking at the pilot trailer is enough to make people bloody: Wang Qianyuan and Wu Yanzu, the two major acting schools, clashed for the first time, the earth-shattering serial robbery setting based on real events, the fierce and thrilling confrontation between good and evil... A long-lost sense of tension struck in an instant.
The film follows the usual path of police films: pursuit, confrontation, ultimate showdown. Large-scale violence scenes with real guns, fist-to-flesh bathroom scenes, overwhelming fast-paced cutting and roaring explosion sound effects all stimulate the senses of "witnesses" outside the field.
Interestingly, many viewers' initial expectations for the film stemmed from the "naked fight" scene between Sheriff Zhong Cheng and the Bandit Eagle in the trailer special. In the steaming bathroom, the "hard-hitting" confrontation and hormone collision, accompanied by a hint of humor, also laid suspense for the ultimate battle between good and evil.
From the above aspects, this "Anti-Riot" that occupies a favorable time and place seems to be likely to become a dark horse for this year's domestic films. However, on the first day of the official release, the film only received the passing score from the audience, and the word "mediocrity" occupied the comment area with high frequency, and the inevitable "hard wounds" were exposed on the big screen.
First of all, the film is relatively thin in terms of plot performance. The one-line narrative that is straight to the point is carried out from the beginning to the end, although it does not depart from the theme of "biting and dying", but the deliberate application of the inherent model of genre films is obvious. The three-step development route of "lock-chase-surrender" is too logical and lacks convincing and personality as it should be.
Secondly, the portrayal of several key characters in the film is not satisfactory. The character of Zhong Cheng, the captain of the criminal police team, is familiar to Wang Qianyuan, who has already experienced the baptism of police films. His performance in the film this time coincides with the image shaping in previous works, although he still carries that fierceness, but there are few surprises in the perception, which can only be regarded as decent.
And Wen Juan, played by Chunxia, is almost reduced to a "tool man" in the film, the whole role is not strong, and the emotional line between the gangster eagle is also somewhat painless, which makes many viewers' expectations for the golden statue heroine disappointed.
In addition, the film tries to be more "Hong Kong-style" in terms of performance style, in addition to creating a dim and dark scene modeled on a Hong Kong-style police film, some of the clips are also added to Sasuke in Cantonese, but when these elements land in the face of the industrialized city in the 1990s, it is inevitable that they will not be different.
It is true that for the recovered film market, the emergence of "Crackdown" is like a sharp arrow, and the interpretation of the current scarce themes and the short and fast narrative rhythm are enough to help it attract attention in the theatrical battle. However, under the hard core, it is inevitable that it is empty, and the unconventional expression and missing novelty are still the bottlenecks that need to be broken through in the film and the same type of film.