the corruptor is a big silly mess of an action movie , complete with pointless plot turns and gratuitous violence . it's not abhorrent , or even blatantly unlikable , but it doesn't make a shred of sense . and whose idea was it to have the director of glengarry glen ross direct an action film ? james foley knows a lot about characters and acting , and those are the strengths of the corruptor . but the quiet scenes clash with the ludicrous action nonsense , and the result is less like a movie and more like a derailed train . at least we have chow yun-fat in the lead role . chow plays nick chen , a chinatown cop . he's a good cop , as the first few scenes establish , and he's very familiar with chinatown . that's probably why the powers-that-be decide to team him up with a rookie named danny wallace ( mark wahlberg ) . nick and danny begin by stepping on each other's toes , but finally end up liking each other once they both get a chance to save the other one's life . what happens after that is kind of a mystery to me . i'm fairly certain that the villains are all part of the fukienese dragons , led by a young chinese psycho named bobby vu ( byron mann ) . i'm also pretty sure that nick is on the payroll of henry lee ( ric young ) , a gangster dealing in prostitutes and other neat stuff . i'm not quite sure why henry lee decides to employ danny , although this makes for some ridiculous ( albeit unpredictable ) plot twists along the way . there's also an interesting subplot revolving around danny's father ( brian cox ) , but it doesn't have much to do with the main story . one of the problems , as i said , is that the movie doesn't make any sense . i don't blame this entirely on foley , because he's obviously a good director . i'm more inclined to point my finger at robert pucci's script , which doesn't seem to be in tune to the way normal people act . one scene early on had me particularly annoyed : nick confronts his boss because he's angry about his new white partner . he's shouting and pointing his finger and stepping on the furniture , and i was thinking that i would have fired him if he had done that to me . ( in addition , the film takes a bite into race-related issues , and never develops them at all . ) there are a lot of scenes like this one , and none of them are very coherent . there's also a considerable language barrier , given that chow and some of the other actors have thick chinese accents . the plot itself never straightens out . i'm not sure who or what the fukienese dragons are , or why henry lee is associated with them , or what they do as a group . the corruptor is an action movie , and so all these weird plot developments are decorated with loud and violent action sequences . the sequences aren't bad , but they're not new ; how many car chases through chinatown have you seen ? on that note , how many chinatown cop movies have you seen ? one too many , i'd imagine . foley's strength is clearly in characterization , and he does a pretty good job here . the scenes between nick and danny are very good , and i actually got a feel for their characters ; a bond forms between them that holds parts of the film together . chow and wahlberg are both good actors ; chow is a pro , and can do this kind of stuff in his sleep . wahlberg seems less at home in this atmosphere , but he's still fun to watch . i also liked the subplot involving danny's father ; brian cox's performance is powerful , and his character makes a compelling moral compass for danny . but the film ultimately fails , mostly at the hands of insane incoherence and overly-familiar action scenes . a complicated plot can be successful , but the story needs to make sense when it's over . the corruptor never manages to make any sense -- it just keeps spinning out of control until , finally , there's nothing left to hold on to .
