The Hindu Business Line : XXX2 - Plunge into the vortex of action

RATHER mysteriously Hollywood has been spewing a strange brew in its films that the `God bless America' line uttered in XXX2 - The Next Level, genuinely sounds a prayer.

The emergent trend is best captured by how Augustus Gibbons (Samuel L. Jackson) describes the character he seeks, to resolve the situation that serves as the film's plot, "the new XXX has got to be deadlier with more attitude.''

It takes little to imagine what lies in store and so, you take the recommended precaution — switch off anything grey inside your head and plunge like a stone into that vortex of action.

That done and soul surrendered, XXX2 darts from one action sequence to the next, some of them beyond questioning whether they could ever occur the way they do.

In 2002, the first `XXX' starring Vin Diesel had grossed $267 million worldwide. In XXX2, a popular US President is being targeted for assassination by a splinter group of dissenters deep within the government.

"Only two people stand between anarchy and freedom. One of them Augustus Gibbons, who has just survived a hit on the National Security Agency's top-secret headquarters and is on the run. The other, a decorated Special Ops soldier, Darius Stone (Ice Cube), sits under close guard in a military prison.

Gibbons once again finds himself in need of an outsider and Stone is his man. The new XXX agent must uncover the insurgents from within.

It is the nation's only hope to stop the first coup d'etat in American history,'' so goes the official handout.

XXX2 sets out to be mindless, oozes attitude like a water mains gone bust and to that extent is well defined to help the prescribed precaution work. Stone sums up your predicament in the seat, when he says, "I pull the trigger, you take the fall.''

After a load of such hurt and an observation by the coup leader, Secretary of Defense, George Deckert (Willem Dafoe), "the tree of liberty must be replenished from time to time with the blood of patriots,'' the film comes to a close. And Stone drives off in yet another sexy car.

Time then, for you to switch on all that you had switched off. XXX2 releases worldwide on April 29.

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XXX2 - Plunge into the vortex of action