For whatever reason, U.S. filmmakers keep trying to let Jet Li act, which is not the former Hong Kong star's strong suit.
Which is not to say that Jet isn't a talented performer. But he does a lot better when he lets his fists and feet do the talking rather than his mouth. "Cradle 2 the Grave" attempts to rectify that by keeping his dialogue to a minimum.
The makers of this action-thriller instead gave the majority of the dialogue to rapper-turned-actor DMX, who may be able to throw a punch, but he can't deliver a line to save his life.
That's not the end of the problems with the film, which is surprisingly mean-spirited, if not racist and sexist. It compounds all that by employing the distasteful child-in-peril clich and showing violence against women and children.
DMX stars as Tony Fait, the charismatic leader of a crew of jewel thieves. He's good at his "job," but he's been thwarted in his latest heist — the theft of more than 50 rare, black diamonds.
The man responsible for that is Su (Jet), a Taiwanese government agent with his own reasons for wanting the diamonds. After Tony makes a risky subway escape, the jewels appear to be lost.
Tony's former employer (Mark Dacascos) isn't pleased. He kidnaps Tony's daughter (Paige Hurd) to prove his point. That forces the government agent and master thief to team up to recover the diamonds and the girl.
As ridiculous as this stuff is, you'd swear that the cast and crew were simply making it up as they go — if only the "special" effects and stunts didn't require some form of planning.
Also, director Andrzej Bartkowiak and his cameramen can't keep the camera on Jet during his fights, and they linger long enough on DMX to let us see that many of his stunts were done by doubles.
But the real sign of desperation is the presence of not one, but two, comic relief characters played by Tom Arnold and Anthony Anderson (neither really gets any laughs).
"Cradle 2 the Grave" is rated R for wall-to-wall action violence (gunplay, martial-arts combat, explosive mayhem and violence against women), frequent use of strong, sexual profanity, racial epithets and crude sexual banter, gore, a scene of torture and some brief sexual contact. Running time: 100 minutes.
E-MAIL: jeff@desnews.com