A NSA operative has been killed by thugs led by the brutal ex-Russian Army commander Yorgi

Oct 24, 2002

Forget the legendary James Bond (ah, not quite). Forget the goofy Austin Powers. Forget Jack Ryan. There’s a new breed of action hero and secret agent in town. Tattooed. Head shaven.

Film: XXX
Starring: Vin Diesel, Samuel L. Jackson, Asia Argento, Marton Csokas
Director: Rob Cohen
Preview by: Sebidde Kiryowa
Rating: PG-13 (Violence, sexual innuendo, profanity)
Showing at: Cineplex Cinema, Garden City Mall starting today

Forget the legendary James Bond (ah, not quite). Forget the goofy Austin Powers. Forget Jack Ryan. There’s a new breed of action hero and secret agent in town. Tattooed. Head shaven. Buff to the maximum. Attitude to spare. A walking advertisement for anti-authoritarianism. And like the letter that begins his first name (and is emblazoned into the back of his neck in triplicate by ink-and-needle), extreme in every way. Xander Cage (Vin Diesel) is XXX.

He makes his questionable living by selling web videos of his outrageous, thrill seeking exploits, whether parachuting out of a stolen car as it plunges 700 feet off a bridge, or other extreme sports activities which invite maximum adrenaline flow or, perhaps, a very early grave. Xander has a circle of friends and admirers in their death-defying subculture, together with whom, they steal computer chips and cars. Soon the long arm of the law catches up with him.

But what Xander does not know is that he has been “scouted” by Agent Augustus Gibbons (Samuel L. Jackson), a veteran agent with the National Security Agency (NSA) whose tough attitude and scarred face mark him as a grizzled but determined warrior for America.

The NSA are facing a desperate situation in distant Prague, Czech Republic, where their undercover operative has been killed by a gang of cutting-edge thugs who call themselves Anarchy 99, headed by the brutal ex-Russian Army commander Yorgi (Marton Csokas) and his beautiful but hardened girlfriend, Yelena (Asia Argento).

Apparently, Yorgi has got a hold of the deadly “Silent Night” biological weapon and may be planning to use it.

Gibbons needs a new breed of agents to get to Prague, to stop them from destroying the world. And Xander Cage, with his astonishing physical and athletic prowess and indifferent attitude, is a perfect, if unlikely (and completely unwilling) candidate.

Along the way, Xander teams up with Yelena, and is aided in his quest by weapons expert Virg (Joe Bucaro III), whose last name must be “Q”.

This is the second time Vin Diesel and director Rob Cohen team for a non-stop action thriller after last year’s The Fast And The Furious, in which Diesel drove cars down city streets in death-defying races. However most critics ridiculed this movie for closely duplicating the James Bond formula, so much one critic wrote: “If there’s one thing that XXX offers, it’s the opportunity to see what a Bond film might be like with a Sylvester Stallone-type action hero in the lead role.”

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