Weekend in Taipei

by Mike McGranaghan

Luke Evans has proven himself to be a versatile actor in films such as Beauty and the Beast, Murder Mystery, and The Girl on the Train. The new Weekend in Taipei makes the case for Luke Evans: Action Hero. Based on what’s up on the screen, this could be a successful career path for him. He has the moves to accompany the talent. Better material will be necessary, though. The movie is closer to The Transporter than Die Hard.

Evans plays John Lawlor, a DEA agent who has spent years trying to bust international kingpin Kwang (Sung Kang). When his boss sends him on a forced vacation, he flies to Taipei to go on a rogue mission. His time there reunites him with Joey (Gwei Lun-Mei), an ex-lover he hasn’t seen in 15 years. She just happens to have a teenage son named Raymond (Wyatt Yang). Do the math. Joey is also married to Kwang, so you can guess how sticky the whole situation gets.

When it focuses on action, Weekend in Taipei is mindless fun. There’s a really slick fight scene inside a restaurant kitchen where John takes on a seemingly endless number of bad guys with pots, pans, a cheese grater, and whatever else he can get his hands on. It ends with a killer visual gag. A couple vehicle chases are similarly enjoyable, as is a fistfight between John and Kwang that takes place inside a cinema, right in front of the screen as a film is being projected to an audience.

What the movie lacks is a story that’s worthy of the mayhem. It’s a foregone conclusion how things will turn out. Do you think John finally gets his man? Does he win back his true love? Is Raymond really his kid? Despite admirable performances from the cast, the screenplay by director George Huang and Luc Besson offers no surprises. The plot plays out in rote fashion, hitting all the predictable beats right on cue. More thought was put into the action than into creating an original scenario for John Lawlor to move about in.

That becomes a problem because more screen time than you’d expect is spent on interactions between the characters. It’s definitely not wall-to-wall with action. Paper-thin situations whose outcomes we can spot from a mile away guarantee that we never get terribly invested. Occasionally, a funny line of dialogue will arrive or an actor will hit an interesting note, but mostly we’re left to hang around until the next shootout or car chase arrives.

When all is said and done, Weekend in Taipei is slick and glossy, yet otherwise kind of generic. Luke Evans has what it takes to become a big-time player in the action genre. Here’s hoping the next script that comes his way has a little extra substance.

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