White Elephant
RLJEThe real elephant in the room for White Elephant is how and why Michael Rooker continues to crop up in action features of this calibre. He has gone the way of Willis. But Bruce Willis, for all his sloppy cameos and the reasoning behind making so many, has featured in much worse than this. John Malkovich, too – who features alongside the pair to form a bald-headed, bad movie trio – has suffered much more than White Elephant. Still, he is the only one of the three to have endured Velvet Buzzsaw. Audiences now get to endure his latest feature, White Elephant, which opens with an artsy intro that wishes it were featured on a James Bond feature.
Amazingly, that quality does continue somewhat after the opening credits have ended, primarily because Rooker is in fine form. Despite this being an obvious cash-in variety of action feature, it is impressive just how much artistic variety director Jesse V. Johnson, of Avengement and The Debt Collector fame, is willing to showcase. So much so, in fact, that White Elephant feels a cut above the rest in this genre. That is still a low bar, almost like performing the limbo underneath a pole vault bar, but the quality Rooker and Malkovich provide here makes White Elephant almost worth watching. Johnson’s direction is emphatic and having so many legends clustered together on-screen means the quality is, inevitably, a little higher than usual.
At least Johnson can cast his net in this genre often, and on purpose. He does churn these action flicks out like clockwork – a well-oiled machine that shows no signs of stopping – but there does feel like there is a little bit of love in White Elephant. From the minor touches of set design to the daring endeavour of bringing Olga Kurylenko into the fray of trashy action features. At best, White Elephant feels like an elongated episode of CSI: Miami, and that is meant as a compliment. Rooker and Malkovich experience a far larger budget than would be expected for this throwaway piece. The genuine heart behind it from Johnson and the cast he pairs together here isn’t all that rewarding, but it is increasingly comfortable.
If audiences are forced at gunpoint to watch a Willis feature from this vein of action slogs, White Elephant is the most bearable. The performances are solid, the action is quite fine and even the direction has its moments. All the genre clichés and components are featured, from shaky cops nursing hangovers to Willis cameos, but Johnson knows how to adapt the material and does so with a firm hand. He has more than enough experience in the genre to know what his audiences want and why they will connect with it, and that, in turn, steers White Elephant and its cast to a surprisingly decent experience. Naturally this feature will be railed on along with the rest of Willis’ output by those hoping to throw a few jabs at the legendary leading man, but what they won’t realise is that White Elephant is a far finer feature than most action features out at the moment.