Reviews: June 2001 Archives

The first 10 minutes of Dead or Alive constitute the most exciting time I've had in a movie theater so far this year. Simultaneously indulging and mocking the audience's willingness to engage with images of explosive violence and gratuitous titillation, the film kicks off with a rapid-fire montage sequence that plays like a take-no-prisoners, big-screen reimagining of Spike Jonze's music video for the Beastie Boys' "Sabotage," itself a hyped-up, self-aware riff on television cop shows of the 1970s.