Rob Cohen: Shitty Director or a Misunderstood Auteur?

Last night, I saw the latest Rob Cohen film, Stealth. Needless to say, it was a typical Rob Cohen film filled with bad dialogue, huge explosion, needless romantic subplots, and people displaying super human powers. This film was so ridiculous that it was impossible to despise it. You wish you could hate it; you want to hate it, but it's so asinine in its execution that you can't help but to laugh. Its very much like Rob Cohen's other films. XXX is essentially a two hour Mountain Dew commercial with huge explosions, slutty women, bad acting, and bad ass stunts scattered through out. It's story line makes no sense, the characters are complete idiots, and at times it is so embarrassing to watch that you want to kill yourself. Yet, despite all its imperfections, it is quintessential viewing. Which begs the question is Rob Cohen a shitty director or a misunderstood auteur? I would argue the latter, as it seems that Cohen is incapable of making a film that doesn't entertain (if for the wrong reasons.) As bad as Stealth was, it never gave me the urge to gauge out my eyeballs like the painfully bad Van Helsing. Instead, I was in a constant state of laughter. Here are some memorable highlights from the film:

1. Pointless romantic interlude in Thailand. In the middle of the movie, the three stealth pilots played by Josh Lucas, Jessica Biel, and Jamie Foxx are on vacation in Thailand. This sequence serves no purpose what so ever in the film. In fact, the only reason it exists is to show Jessica Biel in a bikini and for Jamie Foxx to make snappy one liners, while discussing military secrets in public. Its ten minutes of sheer pointlessness.

2. Close ups of innocent civilians every time the team goes on a mission. Everytime, the team was sent on a mission, there would be countless close ups of innocent civilains to emphasizes how dangerous their mission was. If they made one screw up, the lives of many innocent people would be put in jeopardy. Cohen uses this device in practically every other scene.

3. There is a sequence in which Jessica Biel ejects from her stealth, while she is doing a free fall, debris from her sleath rains down on her. This is roughly a five minute scene and she some how manages to talk the entire sequence, narrating her plight to the command center. She talks, talks, talks, and despite being in such a horrible plight, she manages to remain coherent the entire time. The people at the command center understand her perfectly. She never once breaks up, nor does she run out of breath, despite falling at a super fast speed, being hit by fiery debris, and having her chute burn away by the derbis, she remains calm. Its Rob Cohen at his idiotic best.

4. Explosions. There is a sequence in which there is an explosion in an Alaskan hangar, causing many men and their trucks to go flying through the air. The best thing about this scene is that you see the men go flying from multiple angles, therefore you get to analyze just how unnatural their flight pattern is; it's obvious that they are being pulled by wires. This explosion is sheer genius on the part of Cohen. Not only is it comedic, but it gives the audience the explosion to top all explosions.

5. Jessica Biel as Rambo. Towards the middle of the film the Jessica Biel character finds herself stranded in North Korea. She is armed with only with a semi-automatic gun, yet despite this major handicap, decides to take on the North Korean army. It is a credit to her badassedness that she WINS. That's right, like every one's favorite unstable Vietnam vet John Rambo, Jessica Biel kicks ass. She even lets out a war cry when she fires her gun at the pursuing North Korean army.

These are my thoughts as of now. If I have more to say about Stealth, I will do so in a future post.