Hard Boiled

I’m not big on movies loudly foregrounding firearms these days, so I thought it might not be the best time to finally watch Hard Boiled, but I did it anyway, and even though it may be the single most trigger-happy movie I’ve ever seen, its effect is entirely different than what I’ve come to expect from most movies fitting that description. I read a review that derides Hard Boiled as less symphony than juvenile heavy metal power ballad, but I don’t think it’s either of those things. The latter would make it a Michael Bay movie. The former would make it, I don’t know, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon? But Hard Boiled is its own phantasmagoria, fully aware of how outlandish its extravagant violence is, and fully committed to that outlandishness like a solemn oath.