Red Corner

Director: Jon Avnet
Cast:
Richard Gere
Bai Ling
Tzi Ma

All jokes aside, you've got to give Richard Gere some credit. He really is becoming a very solid actor—rent "Primal Fear" again and notice how he is completely dissolved into the character of Martin Vail. Less a character study and more of an adventure/thriller, "Red Corner" still shows Gere in top form, grizzled enough to play a convincing professional, yet still young enough to be chased along the rooftops of Beijing.

Gere is a hotshot lawyer trying to close a multi-million dollar TV deal that will flood China with Western programming. When he wakes up in a hotel room framed for the murder of a young girl, he is thrown into China's decidedly Draconian legal system with little chance of survival. Fortunately for him, a smart, wizened state-appointed lawyer (Bai Ling, who is absolutely wonderful) is on his defense, and the two must find out the ruse before he gets a bullet in the brain. Despite all the deceivingly scary edits from Jon Avnet (people opening doors and closing windows much louder than they need to), there is a palpable tension behind "Red Corner" that keeps the movie churning. The shots of Tienamen Square and the jail sequences are drippingly authentic. This sort of attention to detail pays off until the end, when the climactic courtroom scene is deflated, somewhat, by subtitles and the voice-overs of various translators. Further proof that sometimes even us movie reviewers need our plot straight, no chaser.

A good ride from beginning to end, "Red Corner" ain't gonna be your favorite movie ever, but if it's raining outside, it's a good popcorn stuffer. With Tzi Ma.

—Ian Williams

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