After seeing Anita Mui in the Hong Kong kick-'em-up thriller, "Savior of the Soul" (see review on page W3), I've become convinced that what America needs is a few action films with female heroes at the center — women who can punch out the bad guys, blow up the mob's headquarters or, if need be, save the world.
But "The Real McCoy" could make me change my mind.
This is isn't Hong Kong, after all, and Hollywood just can't seem to get it right.
"The Real McCoy" is a gender-twist take on the typical Bruce Willis action picture, with Kim Basinger as a cat burglar who is forced to return to the bank-robbing business against her will. It's not an original plot, of course. Back in the '60s we got movies like this almost weekly, from "Topkapi" to "Gambit" to "How to
Steal a Million."
"The Real McCoy" opens with Basinger (or her stunt double) trying to break into the elaborate, high-tech Atlanta Union Bank in Georgia. After lots of climbing around in darkness, smoke and blue backlighting, she trips an alarm, escapes to the roof and is stopped in her tracks by a police helicopter.
Then the film leaps forward six years, as Basinger is paroled from prison a few years early. She heads back home to Atlanta, where she checks in with her slimy parole officer and quickly finds that ex-cons can't get jobs.
Basinger also discovers that her ex-husband has told their son that she is dead, burning all the letters she has sent from prison. If that's not enough, her old criminal boss (Terence Stamp) still wants to get into that Atlanta Union Bank — and he wants Basinger to organize the break-in. (Stamp is the kind of criminal mastermind who lives in a huge mansion with Rottweilers in the front yard and caged tigers in the back.)
Bungling thief Val Kilmer also stumbles into her life, falling all over himself with admiration for her string of successful robberies, ignoring the one time she got caught. As it happens, Kilmer is Stamp's nephew, though they don't seem to like each other. And son-of-a-gun if that nasty old corrupt parole officer isn't on Stamp's payroll, as well.
But Kilmer is a good guy at heart and he tries to help Basinger when Stamp kidnaps her son to force her into action.
If all of this sounds ridiculous in the telling, it's even worse in the watching. Every character is a cardboard idiot, every plot element is a timeworn cliche, every idea is caked with dust.
And director Russell Mulcahy, true to his TV-commercial roots, makes every shot worthy of 30 seconds for Ford or Miller Lite . . . visually anyway.
For a PG-13 movie (so rated for violence and profanity), the violence is pretty grim.
One final note. As the hero of the piece, Basinger seems to have a hard time standing up to the men who mistreat her. And in the end, she needs help from Kilmer before she can take down the evil parole officer.
Bruce Willis wouldn't stand for that kind of chauvinism.
Neither would Anita Mui.