The Fifth Commandment (2008)

The previews actually made this movie look much better than it actually is. I popped it in one evening expecting something like The Replacement Killers, Kill Zone or Flash Point. Boy was I sorely disappointed. Who do I see about getting the last two hours of my life back? I would have just assumed took a lit match to my 20.00 bill and felt it would've been better spent.The plot is nothing we haven't seen before. Rogue assassin suddenly gets a conscience, protects the girl, former allies now after him. At least when Ninja Assassin adopted this recycled storyline, they made it interesting.And is it just me, or did anyone else find the lead actress totally annoying? If I were Rick Yune's character at some point I'd have grown tired of her and been like 'Screw it go out there and get killed.'After having watched fight scenes in movies like Ong-Bak, Kill Zone, Ip Man, and Rapid Fire, the fights in this movie are a total snooze-fest. It brings nothing new to fight choreography. Even somewhat dull fights you can make look pretty interesting with the right music score and the right camera work. Rick should stick to acting out other people's scripts, not writing his own.

The Fifth Commandment is an average action movie. Not so good and not so bad. In the good side, its action sequences is quite well at one point. The movie doesn't make suck cinematography like some action DVD movie which make me fretful even the crew has a limited budget. Its drama scene also very good indeed especially between the brothers. Rick Yune and Bokeem Woodbine can make sense to me because of their imperfect lives. The movie is very proper in how to mix action and drama scenes.Not only that but also how the crew make some thrilling things like the role of Max "Cool Breeze" Templeton. He maybe the bad guy who is the mastermind behind everything but at last, he is the really father who care their child so much! However, in the bad side. The Fifth Commandment has some unreasonable section of its plot. First, Miles Templeton should not died too fast. I actually expect when he died that he would come back surprisingly in the climax to help his younger brother, but my guess is wrong which make me unsatisfyingly.Second, the movie is over the top in many point! Not only police in the movie who was killed too easily (Even in the police station!!!) but also the scene which Chance was tortured by the police. Hey! the story occurred in Thailand. Why you put some foreigner in that scene rather than use all of them Thai people? OK! They maybe police at all but that's very corny about some guy who was tortured in Thai police station by Thai police and foreigner police! (I mean those police in the movie only, not in reality.) And the last one, they make Thai police's look so bad! To be killed like a piece of cake and their barbaric action in Chance's torture scene. (I want to complain about that because I'm Thai people!) About the cast, even I feel unsuitable about Rick Yune's leading role because of his look, but I grant him later because his action is fit with the role. Roger Yuan has a fit look as the villain, not too much and not less than the standard. He makes me remember about Mr.Hertz in Shoot 'Em Up who died so hard and looks nasty. Bokeem Woodbine and Keith David also fit their role as well. However, Dania Ramirez's role as Angel is a little hecticness.For the overall, the movie is OK. It can entertain you better than some action movie which has a suck plot and cinematography. I hope you will enjoy with The Fifth Commandment!

I really like Rick Yune and it really isn't easy rating the movie that low. But I just can't rate the movie higher. As another reviewer wrote, you could give Rick Yune an "A" for his efforts. But it might have been better, if someone else would have written the story, someone (many?) would have helped him with the producing part and maybe if the movie had stronger leads.The acting is way below average, but then again, the script doesn't seem to have anything that anyone could hold onto. The female lead might be beautiful, but is totally misplaced. While I'm writing about all this, some of you might wonder, why I haven't lost a word about the action sequences. After all this is an action movie and the really important part is the choreography of these scenes. I'd say that they save the movie from a "1" rating, but as the time and the stunts have progressed the last year, coming up with stunts like these, won't really cut it. There's Ong Bak, Tom Yum Goong and also Donnie Yen's and Jet Li's latest efforts. Even for a fan of the genre, this won't appeal to you. I hope for Rick Yune, that he finds better projects in the future.

I was really mentally fatigued so i decided to spend the evening with something mindless, just dribble in fact. It turned out more than i expected but less than what i wanted it to be. Rick Yune if given a chance IE, left the writing to professionals and concentrating his efforts on his acting, has a real potential to be ranked amongst Chow Yun Fat and those type of actors, but his skill has to improve, as well as his close hand combat choreography. They attempted a hand to hand scene trying to pull off the Bourne and Asset fight off in the last movie, but it was too messy and not visually fluid like you would have expected. Clichéd dialogue and plot tears this movie to shreds. I mean Van Damme, Snipes, Lundgren have all exhausted this regurgitated storyline and see what happened to them. I must say the editing was OK for a bad movie. The girls were sexy as in any B movie, but i don't think we will ever see the lead actress (? Ramirez)again as her performance was so unrealistic and paper thin. She is an Ashanti type artist. She carries a 9mm in her stockings while she is in concert, i mean come on. I am an avid movie goer and this movie gave me an opportunity to exercise my movie analytic skills, eg what bad fight choreography looks like, or what a script should avoid etc etc. So much for a mindless evening, ironic isn't it.