I note there has been a massive increase in road traffic accidents recently. Not in real life, but at the cinema, where every other film seems to have a surprise “someone getting run over” scene. It provides the twist in Last Life In The Universe, it is used for horrific black yuks in Mean Girls, an illustration of good luck in The Cooler and it is a chosen method of assassination in Infernal Affairs 2. And that’s just in the last month. Feel free to fill up the comments box with more.
Infernal Affairs 2 wants to be the Godfather 2. In a lot of ways it works. It is a straight prequel to Infernal Affairs, the slightly cerebral Hong Kong logical extrapolation of Michael Mann’s Heat. In Infernal Affairs we have a triad mole in the cops, and a police mole in the triads and the fun (and angst) is in how they play each other off. The problem with a sequel is that IA is a tragedy in the Shakespearian sense. The problem with a prequel is that our two leads have no idea of each others existence and do not until IA is almost three quarters of the way through. So how do we keep the story of their travails interesting, without contradicting the first film.
The answer is to tell the story of their bosses. This stuffs the plot up nicely, and relies heavily on the recognisable charisma of the actors in these roles (frankly as the two moles are played by their “younger selves” it needs to be spelled out who is who). It still seems to over stuff the story, and as a straight prequel it probably does not work as a stand alone film, let alone a trailer for the superior Infernal Affairs. And all that slo-mo and choral singing. IA wants to be Godfather 2 but whilst it can do the backstory, Godfather 2 had a forward momentum too.