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Unleashed (2005)
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Movie Review by Chris
July 20th, 2008
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In Glasgow, Danny (Jet Li) is a young specialist in martial arts raised like a dog by his owner, the gangster and collector Bart (Bob Hoskins). When Bart unleashes his collar, Danny behaves like a savage animal, hurting and killing people as commanded by Bart. After an accident, the wounded Danny is lodged by the blind tuner of piano Sam (Morgan Freeman) and his stepdaughter Victoria (Kerry Condon). They welcome him in the breast of their family, humanizing Danny, who feels attracted by music. But his past haunts him.
Unleashed, directed by Louis Letterier, was actually originally named Danny The Dog, as it tells the story of basically a human pet. He gets locked up in a cage under the floor, fed small amounts of food and used only when needed, so besides that he is just there. Jet Li, Bob Hoskins and Morgan Freeman all put on great performances, the story is actually a hard and emotional one when you dig deeper then the skin and the action scenes, choreographed by Jet Li himself, are undeniably great to watch. In the beginning of the film we see that Danny, played by Jet Li, is being chained up by Bart, a man who lives for making money and doing illegal stuff. He really has no respect for Danny and uses Danny to get money and revenge on people who have done him wrong.
There are brief moments in the movie where Bart tells Danny that he found Danny on the streets and he helped him by giving him a home, which is a cage, and gives him a life. Even though Danny was never tought to really love or do anything so Danny does take out revenge on Bart towards the end, but thats after he learns some stuff which I dont really want to ruin. Bart does a pretty good job when it comes to being disrespectful and mean to Danny and everything he does is awesome and it just made me want to kill him. It actually got me mad to see that there are people in this world who would actually treat a grown man like this and not to mention the fact that he is ruining Danny's life. When Danny gets to the point where he doesnt want to fight, Bart begins getting mad and then in turn beats on Danny. It shows that Bart doesnt care about what Danny wants, but he cares about making money and making himself look good.
Jet Li handles both the action scenes and character elements well. Jet Li is the master when it comes to choreographing and setting up a big fight scene and this movie shows no lack to his skill. Even though there is only like 3 major fight scenes, the directing of both Louis and Jet makes it all great. He does a lot of flips and flying through the air, so does the bad guys he ends up kicking around. He ends up meeting a blind piano fixer named Sam, played by Morgan Freeman. Sam is respectful and gives Danny a place to live, not to mention teaching him everything he knows by the end. This is when we see that Danny has learned to care for someone he barely knows and also shows that he is becoming more normal then just being a dog.
Unleashed succeeds when it comes to action, story and character. The only problem I had was the few little cliches throughout but everything is all fine with the movie.
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