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Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever | 2002 | R | - 2.5.4

Reclusive former FBI manhunter Jeremiah Ecks (Antonio Banderas) is haunted by the mysterious death of his wife, but he's forced back into service in order to track down a renegade operative code-named Sever (Lucy Liu), who's kidnapped the son of the head of a secret government agency. Also with Ray Park, Terry Chen and Aidan Drummond. [1:31]

SEX/NUDITY 2 - A man appears to be trying too force himself on a woman in an alley (he says, "come on baby" and is pressed up against her). A man and a woman kiss, and a man and a woman hug. A woman wears a dress that reveals cleavage.

VIOLENCE/GORE 5 - A man hands another man a gun, tells him to put it to his head and pull the trigger; the man does until the last second when he turns the gun on the other man and when he pulls the trigger it fires a bullet into his forehead. We see the image of a very small robot as it works its way through a person's anatomy and injects something that then kills the person instantly (this happens twice; one time we see the robot and then a flatline on a monitor and the other time we watch the person suffer and die). A man is shot in the chest and falls to the ground (we hear that he survives but that the bullet hit very near his heart). A man is shot in the chest and falls to the ground moaning (the bullet hit his vest). A man is shot in the arm (we see a bloody hole in his coat sleeve). A woman fights many men with weapons (guns, grenade launchers, knives and sticks) and hand-to-hand: A woman is fired upon by many heavily armed men in a crowded shopping mall; she fires back with her own weapons and those that she picks up as she moves along (we see many bodies strewn in her wake and there is a lot of property damage), and she fires a grenade at a rooftop perch and the man who was posted there falls many stories and crashes onto the roof of a car. There are many, many explosions in what appears to be a train yard; many train cars are blown up into the air and many men are wounded or killed (we don't linger on them, but we do see a group of men surrounded by flames and then they writhe on the ground). A man is shoved off a platform and he appears to fall into an explosion (another man has just tossed an explosive device in his general direction). A man shoots and kills several men and a woman shoots and kills several men, and a man shoots at a woman repeatedly. A man sets off a series of explosions and one loosens a load of metal pipes, which roll on top of him and pin his leg. Two men step into a puddle, a wire is cut and plunged into the water and they are electrocuted. A man and a woman fight with many heavy, hard punches and kicks; the woman is slashed on the face with a knife (we see a bit of blood); and a man and woman fight with punches and kicks (the man is kicked in the face and falls onto the ground). A woman beats several men with sticks leaving them all unconscious. A woman punches and kicks a man and wraps her leg around his neck and cracks it (we see him later in a neck brace), then she fights two more men leaving them incapacitated. A woman punches a man and knees him in the face (we hear him yelling about his nose). A man jumps onto a speeding car, is tossed off and lands hard on the ground, shoots out a tire and the car crashes into a car parked in the street flipping the first car into the air (we see the driver, apparently uninjured, inside as it crashes down to the ground again). A man on a motorcycle slams into a parked car, he flips in the air, lands hard on the ground, then two cars come sailing over the parked car and crash on the ground behind the man. A man and woman are shot at while on a rooftop, and they run, jump and slide down a long chute to the ground. A bus is fired upon by a grenade launcher that sends it careening into traffic and then flipping on its side, and a car is fired upon by a grenade launcher and the explosion flips the car in the air. A car explodes on a street next to a car with a young boy as a passenger and a truck crashes into the side of another car. Two men threaten a man, he grabs one and tosses him over the top of a bar counter and holds the other by the throat (he sputters and coughs). A man has flashbacks to a car explosion and the man's wife was apparently killed in the blast. Another flashback shows a man being blown through the air by a car explosion and he lies on the ground with a blackened face and a bloody ear. A boy is taken from his mother's car forcibly by men. A woman rides a motorcycle through heavily trafficked streets while being chased by cars and a man rides a motorcycle through traffic while being chased. Heavily armed agents break down the door of a house and arrest a man. A group of men emerge from cars with guns drawn. We hear about a woman's child and family having been murdered and see aerial video images of a house exploding. It is suggested that a boy has a small robot in his body. A boy is kept locked in a cage by his captor.

LANGUAGE 4 - 6 scatological terms, 6 mild obscenities, 2 religious exclamations.

SUBSTANCE USE - People are shown drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes.

DISCUSSION TOPICS - Terrorism, greed, love, retaliation, the Chinese orphan-class, assassins, family, power, profit.

MESSAGE - Greed and power corrupt. Family is the only thing worth fighting for.

CAVEATS

Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.

We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.

Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.


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