DANGEROUS GROUND - * 1/2 - Ice Cube, Elizabeth Hurley, Ving Rhames, Sechaba Morajele, Eric Miyeni; co-written and directed by Darrell James Roodt; R (profanity, violence, drug use, vulgarity, racial epithets, torture, brief nudity); exclusively at the Carmike 12 Theaters.
There's actually an interesting story to "Dangerous Ground." Unfortunately, it's abandoned after only 10 minutes as the film swiftly degenerates into your usual run-of-the-mill action flick.
The movie actually starts out by contrasting the difference between South African exiles and their families who stayed behind. However, since that material isn't nearly "sexy" enough for most film audiences, things soon escalate into gunplay and urban violence.
And as for the film's much-hyped pairing of rapper Ice Cube and Estee Lauder spokesmodel Elizabeth Hurley as its stars, let's just say that Hurley is a fine . . . model, while Ice Cube shouldn't consider giving up his musical career just yet.
Ice Cube plays Vusi, a one-time student activist now living in America who returns to South Africa for the burial of his father. There, he clashes with his younger brother, Ernest (Sechaba Morajele), a former soldier for the African National Congress who accuses him of forgetting "the struggle."
At his mother's behest, Vusi is asked to bring back his youngest brother, Steven (Eric Miyeni), who disappeared after he butted heads with Ernest, as well.
Searching throughout crime-ridden Johannesburg, Vusi doesn't locate Steven, but runs into Steven's girlfriend, Karin (Hurley), a crack-addicted stripper who informs him that his brother has run afoul of Muki (Ving Rhames), a Nigerian druglord who has threatened to kill Steven if he doesn't pay him the $15,000 he owes.
Things get even more ludicrous from there, as Vusi confronts pseudo-Nazis and paranoid drug dealers and then has to avenge Steven's death - after his brother dies in his arms, natch.
Probably the biggest disappointment is that this dull and muddled mess came from co-writer/-director Darrell James Roodt ("Cry, the Beloved Country," "Sarafina!"), who stoops to slow-motion action scenes in an attempt to add some "oomph!" And his dialogue is so cliched and heavy-handed at times it's laughable.
Of course, it helps that the performances are so uniformly bad, especially from Ice Cube, who reads his lines as if he's seeing the script for the first time, Hurley, who seems to be posing for still photos most of the time, and Rhames, who seems to be stealing Geoffrey Holder's voodoo shtick from "Live and Let Die."
Worst of all is Ice Cube's corny and wooden voiceover, which removes any sense of suspense because you automatically know he's going to survive and which sounds like it was added to explain the politics of the situation (otherwise they'd be glossed over completely).
"Dangerous Ground" is rated R for continuous profanity and violence, some scenes of Miyeni and Hurley simulating drug use, a few vulgar references, a couple of racial epithets, a brief torture scene and brief flashes of nudity (in a stripclub scene, of course!).