This subtle, thought-provoking tale begins in a restaurant, where the intractable Gibbons (an on-point Samuel L.Jackson) muses on the precarious balance of world affairs to an attentive Neymar Jr., who has seemingly decided to trade in his lucrative footballing career for a life of public service in the eponymous XXX program. After foiling a violent hold-up with his famous footballing skills, Neymar and Gibbons are incinerated by a crashing satellite.
Cut to Langley, where Head of CIA Jane Marke (Toni Colette turning in a tour-de-force performance) explains that terrorists had gotten their hands on a device which can control all 30,000 satellites orbiting Earth, threatening the very existence of America. "The nerds down in the lab call it Pandora's Box" Colette earnestly intones, before revealing that diligent CIA agents managed to retrieve the device and restore security to the world. However, after a ninja jumps 60 feet from a nearby skyscraper, murders most of the room and stows away with the device, an international crisis ensues that only one man can stop.
This may very well be regarded as Vin Diesel's "Raging Bull", as his subtle and nuanced portrayal of conflicted agent, Xander Cage, is the fulcrum on which XXX hinges. Every micro-expression and word is laden with the weight of responsibility one might expect a man, who single-handedly murders armies for a living, would have to grapple with.
What ensues is a thought-provoking commentary on love, war and international relations, as the very depths of the human condition are explored through high speed mountainside skiing, trucktop hand to hand combat on a busy motorway and a zero gravity fight on a plummeting military jet. Ice Cube lends his gravitas to proceedings with a subtle cameo in which he eviscerates 2 elite military units with a grenade launcher. "Rock, Scissors, Paper, Grenade Launcher".
Beautiful.
After Vin Diesel has blown up a weaponised satellite by flying a jet into it, we are left to ponder some very deep questions about life, including the NSA's infringement of privacy, the positive influence of America in global unity, the benefit of cooperation over conflict and the important role of women in society. If you go to see one film this year, make it xxx
