If you have ever wanted to watch an angry Muay Thai fighter obliterate dozens, if not hundreds, of opponents in a quest to rescue his two elephants, than the Protector is the movie for you. This is a movie for martial arts film buffs, and no one else. Apparently, it was 20 minutes longer in the original Thai release than its American release. Those 20 minutes probably hold the bits of story that explain how the star, Tony Jaa, gets from one fight scene to another. Honestly, this movie does sometimes jump from action set to action set with no real sense of how the transition took place. But you know what? Neither I, nor the three guys I saw it with, really cared. We were all there to watch Jaa do what Jaa does best - beat on people. And oh, what glorious beat-downs they were! Muay Thai is arguably one of the most vicious martial arts forms on the planet, and it's used to good effect in this movie. The bad guys are often left groaning on the floor, clutching at now-useless limbs. In my mind, the highlight of The Protector is when Tony Jaa's character Cam faces off against a very skilled capoeira fighter in a burning temple. Other people may prefer the much-touted "longest single cut fight scene" with Jaa fighting a bunch of people while going up a huge spiral staircase, but I found it pretty weak as far as fight mechanics went. The fight near the end with dozens of guys getting their limbs broken is also great, but I saw it months ago on YouTube, and several times since, so it had lost its shine by the time I saw the movie. The low point of the film is when Our Hero has to fight a gang of BMX riders and rollerbladers who are armed with florescent light bulbs. Literally. You know what? Any gangster with thugs like that deserves to get punked, because that is the worst gang idea ever. The sheer impracticality of it boggles the mind. When comparing The Protector to Jaa's first movie, Ong-Bak, it's easy to find parallels. Both movies have a small-town guy going to the big city to fight corrupt city people who have stolen something of great traditional/religious importance from the small town. In the first movie, it was a sacred Buddha head. In this movie, it's two elephants. And also, his father was killed, but really, it's all about the elephants. Cam doesn't run around screaming "You killed Dad!" he yells "Where's my elephants???" I do have to wonder if this is some statement about the importance of holding on to tradition and faith in the face of globalization, or if Jaa just doesn't have very original screen writers. Nonetheless, both films were fun to watch, and a nice change from the Chinese model of "You killed my master/insulted our school!" Tony Jaa is being billed as the next great martial arts action hero. He's been quoted as saying that Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, and Jet Li are his inspirations. Now, I'm not too familiar with the works of Bruce Lee (I know, that's some sort of blasphemy, they're going to take away my martial arts fan club card), but I've watched approximately one bazillion movies starring either Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, Yuen Biao, or Jet Li. What all of those actors had in spades, and what Jaa somewhat lacks, is charisma. The first three, often starring in movies together, all had great comedy potential. Chan is of course well-known in America for his goofy stunts, and some know Sammo Hung from his work on the TV show "Martial Law." Biao doesn't seem to have made much of an impact in the States, but anyone who's seen his movies knows that he is a crazy dex monkey of a man. Although I've seen some of these actors in serious movies, they really shine in comedy, which endears them to the audience. Jet Li hasn't done nearly as much comedy, but in most of his roles he either has a charming naivete, or the noble bearing of the traditional hero he's portraying. He always seems like such a nice guy, genuinely sweet and sometimes quite intellectual (as when he's playing Wong Fei Hung). Of course, he did a pretty good turn as a villian in that Lethal Weapon movie, but really, his strengths are as the hero. And Tony Jaa? Well, he kicks a lot of ass. His movies don't seem to give him a lot of chance to develop a character who can build empathy with the audience. Yes, we can applaud his efforts to do the right thing to help his village, but we're given very little sense of who he is beyond a killing machine. He doesn't smile much, doesn't have a lot of lines, and never seems to build more than the most basic relationship with his co-stars. He satisfies the desire for action, but nothing more. I would like the chance to see if Mr. Jaa can actually act. I'm not saying that he has to do a drama or a buddy cop movie, but I am hoping that he starts to do more action-with-a-plot movies, and that we'll actually get those movies intact, not chopped down to nothing but fight scenes for our short attention spans.

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Copyright © 2006 By AJ Reardon E-mail AJ at: ErtheFae@aol.com Visit AJ at: www.erthefae.com