Michael Madsen is great in the part of Miles, a mover and shaker with a soft spot for hard-bodied beauties. Also, there's a Chinese guy (Carl Ng) who looks like an Asian edition of Edward Norton. Neither of which is the point. The point is the crazy Italian girl (Sandra, played by Asia Argento), and what she endures at the hands of the Golden Eagle corporation and its evil minions. Not that she's an angel herself. More than anything, she's a broken girl, not unlike Luc Besson's "Nikita". Sandra's half-hour kitchen scene is nothing short of a revelation. It starts with a shared cigarette and ends with a mess much bigger than dirty dishes and broken plates. It's the kind of mess that won't go away. So Sandra does. To Hong Kong, only to find Miles was the lesser evil after all. Asia Argento is obviously a serious person, not spoiled by random relativism like the rest of us. She throws herself into every scene, be it commonplace or spectacular, with the single-mindedness of a Zen master and the intensity of a maniac. Would I care though if she wasn't so hot? Not likely. I am what I am.
Review of Boarding Gate
