xXx tells you what kind of movie it's going to be from the start. It tells you from its Rammstein-fuelled opening scene. It tells you the moment the smirking, tatted-up hero struts into frame and zips off in a stolen car. It tells you from the very bones of its concept. xXx is a movie about an extreme sports legend recruited to be a secret agent for the American government. That is inherently goofy. It's James Bond by way of bro culture -- the cinematic equivalent of Axe Body Spray. And it works because it never tries to be anything else. Well, that and the utterly insane, over-the-top, but oh-so-impressive stunts.
For xXx, Vin Diesel reteamed with his The Fast and the Furious director Rob Cohen for another propane-fuelled actioner. Indeed, until the franchise was resurrected for The Return of Xander Cage, xXx was sort of the forgotten bastard child of the Furious franchise. It shares the same star and helmer, but it also shares the same basic genetic makeup: wild parties, exotic locations, babes, and daredevil stunts. But where the Furious films have a big beating heart thanks to The Family, xXx only has a big swinging set of balls, attached to a thrill-seeking rebel who likes to jump, skydive, and drive off of every highpoint he can find, which is the spirit that defines the simple joys of the movie from concept to execution.
Image via Columbia Pictures[/caption]
To be clear, xXx is not a good movie by any conventional metric; It's tacky and thinly scripted, it's pretty all-around awful to its female characters -- sorry, character, and there's a black hole where the leads' chemistry should be. (I've seen few things more depressing or disturbing in my time than the way Diesel and Asia Argento kiss each other.)
The film treats its script and set-pieces with "wouldn't it be cool?" logic, which is both fitting to its title character and a ton of fun. At one point the action takes us, without warning or anticipation, from the inside of a barn to a turbulent wide-open battlefield that looks like it was ripped from a Vietnam movie. Cage zips his motorbike through a flock of helicopters raining down bullets; he jumps razor wire fences and rides on rooftops. At the climax of this particular set pieces, Cage drives down the side of building.... as it explodes. Cohen used thirteen cameras to film that moment, and it's really something to behold. If you're going to watch a man drive down a burning building, skydive onto a mountain top strapped to a snowboard, or board through an avalanche, you want to see it as clearly and from as many different points of view as possible.
Because what's even crazier about the stunts of xXx is how practical they are. Xander Cage is a ridiculous, fictional man, but there are extraordinary athletes behind his on-screen feats. The lament of the forgotten stuntman is a well-known refrain in action circles, as it should be. These performers, who quite literally put their lives on the line for the film's most fantastical "money shot" moments are left out of awards conversations and rarely recognized for their talents. xXx, from its very concept to its fawning execution, is essentially a celebration of these mad geniuses. Indeed, one such performer died the set of
Indeed, one such performer died on the set of xXx while performing one of the film's daredevil stunts. Harry O'Connor, a well-known skydiver who had previously worked on Charlie's Angels and Solider, suffered a fatal injury while filming the climactic action sequence in which Cage rappels under a bridge on a paraglider to disarm a submarine. O'Connor struck the bridge on the way down and died on the spot. I don't mean to be downer here at the end, but it's important to appreciate the intensity of what goes into pulling off stuntwork this extreme. Which isn't to say deaths should be expected or common, obviously, but it is an incredibly dangerous field and the risk these folks put themselves in to do their job isn't mentioned nearly enough. Sometimes making a silly movie is awful serious.
I haven't had the pleasure of watching The Return of Xander Cage just yet, the latest xXx films which resurrects Diesel's daredevil agent and his exceptional, outlandish stunts along with him. Xander Cage is gonna Xander Cage in some glorious ways thanks to another team of innovative stunt men and director D.J. Caruso. He's going to ski through a jungle, a stunt for which they recruited professional freeskiers Cody Townsend, LJ Strenio, and Sandy Boville. He's going to motorcycle surf accross the damn ocean, a stunt conceived in the crazypants brain of biker Robbie Maddison. He's even going to fight with what they're calling "motorcycle martial arts" wth the help of trick motorcyclist Jack Field. This time around it was all happily completed without incident. No doubt the movie is going to be goofy as hell, but I'm excited to see the return of a franchise that relishes in the concept and execution of stuntwork so thoroughly.
