The Protector Starring Tony Jaa

I just sat through Tony Jaa's latest Western release, "The Protector." I gave up watching martial arts films a long time ago, finding them repetitive and simple. The "wow!" factor had plateaued around The Matrix and Jet Li's "Fist of Legend" as there are simply just so many things that impress us nowadays. But, as with technology, something eventually comes along that jacks everything up to the next level. With the advent of "parkour" and "freerunning" (see the opening scenes of "Casino Royale" for demonstrations of those) and the suicidal stunt teams of Tony Jaa and company, the next level is here and it will be the standard against which all action films will be judged. Stunts no longer even look remotely human and fight scenes display such bone-crunching disregard for safety that I simply cannot believe that entire teams of stuntmen aren't killed or maimed for each film.

"The Protector" is a laughably bad movie, with a ridiculous plot, execrable acting and barely understandable dialogue, but there is one redeeming thing and that is the stuntwork, which let's face it is the only reason one would waste one's time on this. If for nothing else, it is worth watching for one long stunt scene, shot in a continuous take with NO CUTS wherein Tony Jaa comes in on the ground floor of a multi-tiered brothel and makes his way to the top floor, dispatching dozens of hapless enemies, some of whom plummet several floors down. It is a testament to the inhuman professionalism of these people that they weren't all killed.