Russell Mulcahy, the director of RESIDENT EVIL: EXTINCTION and THE SCORPION KING 2 continues to show an interest in weaving small doses of martial arts action into a melting pot of genre conventions. His latest is GIVE ‘EM HELL, MALONE, a modern mix of hard-boiled crime action from the 1930s and 1970s that stars Thomas Jane, Ving Rhames and wushu exponent Chris Yen.

I do not care for the hyper-hacked up editing on the teaser trailer but the actual movie, what we can see of it, looks promising. As resident contributor Jean Lukitsh suggested when introducing me to this film, it has a SIN CITY flavor. What I like though is it doesn’t have the CGI. Now I’m guessing Mulcahy, who is very comfortable working with effects, may have envisioned more extensive production design and effects work that didn’t fit what appears to be a modest budget. If so, it’s a bonus as the real-world look and live stunt work looks far better.

The quality action that the film displays is no doubt in large part the result of oversight by veteran A-list stunt coordinator Gregg Smrz with a stunt career spanning nearly three decades and past experience on majors like LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD, ALIAS and SPIDER-MAN.

Chris Yen is, of course, the younger sister of martial arts superstar and action director Donnie Yen. She has been courting a career in martial arts acting for several years now with credits that include Hong Kong action comedy PROTÉGÉ DE LA ROSE NOIRE (2004) and the low-budget actioner ADVENTURES OF JOHNNY TAO which was recently released on DVD courtesy of MTI Home Video.

I have to give credit to Thomas Jane for putting his chips into some very interesting choices when it comes to acting roles. Ever since his international breakout film STANDER (2004), he has proven himself to be a very capable action lead with a taste for the kind of gritty action that once made screen legends of Steve McQueen and Charles Bronson. As further evidence of his intentions Jane is sharing the screen with some pretty tough co-stars including Mickey Rourke, Ron Perlman and Ving Rhames.

Rhames is also picking some interesting projects. Among roughly 12 upcoming productions is PHANTOM PUNCH where he portrays heavyweight boxing champ Sonny Liston. In the full-throttle actioner THE TOURNAMENT he plays one of several assassins out to kill each other, two of them being MARTIAL LAW star Kelly Hu and UNDISPUTED 2 star Scott Adkins. He’s also a tough guy in ROGUE’S GALLERY, co-starring Maggie Q and with fight choreography by John Koyama (MASK OF THE NINJA).

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