I already noticed, that there are certain categories of bad movies. Like "It's so bad, that it's actually good". Well, this one is just plain bad. It'n not even "brainless fun" type.
The plot is simple. In Hong Kong 14-year old girl witnesses her father, triad boss Sun Quan, killing her mother. She runs off in fear and ends up in refugee ship, headed for Los Angeles (where else!). This ship happens to belong to the same triad boss and is used to smuggle drugs with help of American official. In States a social worker, who also happens to be a wife of shady fellow Ben Archer(JCVD), takes her home. Sun Quan arrives to L.A. to find his daughter and all sorts of mayhem ensue.
It's an action flick, so simple plot is not a bad thing. If it's well executed. But instead we get bad acting and random events that just happen without any attempt to connect them logically. The guy drives to a restaurant to meet his wife, carrying loaded and ready to fire gun? Everybody does that! He sees some Chinese in Chinatown and starts firing at them? Everybody does that too! People are running around the city with guns and nobody pays any attention? That's just happens all the time in L.A.! Scared kid runs away from restaurant, apparently not knowing that his mother is killed, and goes where? No, not home, which usually is the safest place in the mind of small child. He goes to his daddy's friends! A man tries to rescue his kidnapped son by randomly shooting and ramming kidnappers' car? Why, the hell, not, the kid's insured! At the end of the movie Ben Archer takes the girl with him to docks, where he intends to meet a bunch of armed and not very friendly thugs. You think he plans to exchange her for his kidnapped son? No, he plans to leave her alone in the middle of the docks - apparently it's the safest place for little girl. The docks are swarming with thugs, who openly carry AK-47's? So what, it's common sight in any port in the United States, especially in Los Angeles! And while Ben goes on his personal vendetta, breaking all the laws and glasses in process, police is nowhere to be seen. Because, he's the hero, give him a break! There you have it, some high points of this movie. The explanatory dialogues (like when Ben and his wife have romantic moment in the bathtub and she says "i am a social worker and i have seen some nasty s***t", yeah, right, like only now you tell him, what you do for living), jumpy MTVesque cuts with fast-forward inserts doesn't help either. And violence for the sake of violence (especially scene in the basement with Mac Hoggins) makes Ben and his mates to look on par with triads. And it sure as hell didn't make me feel for any of supposedly good guys.
Now, some might argue, that action movie needs only gunshots, buttkicking, explosions and no logic whatsoever. I disagree. I myself do enjoy some early Seagal or Van Damme movies, with equally little plot. But they had some sense to what was happening. And besides, that was like decades ago and even back then "Wake of death" would have been a bad movie. I still watch "Last boy scout" or first "Die hard" from time to time and i think these are The Proper Action Movies. "Wake for death" is not. Or maybe i'm just getting too old for this crap...
