Unleashed (film)

Unleashed
U.S. theatrical poster for Unleashed
Directed by	Louis Leterrier
Produced by	Luc Besson Jet Li Steven Chasman
Written by	Luc Besson
Starring	Jet Li Morgan Freeman Bob Hoskins Kerry Condon
Music by	Massive Attack Howard Drossin
Cinematography	Pierre Morel
Editing by	Nicolas Trembasiewicz
Studio	Digital Factory, Europacorp.inc
Distributed by	Rogue Pictures Alliance Films
Release date(s)	France: February 2, 2005 (2005-02-02) Hong Kong: May 12, 2005 (2005-05-12) United States: May 13, 2005 (2005-05-13) United Kingdom: August 19, 2005 (2005-08-19)
Running time	103 minutes
Country	United States France United Kingdom
Language	English
Budget	$45 million[1]
Box office	$50,871,113[1]

Unleashed (also known as Danny the Dog), is a 2005 American-British-French martial arts action thriller film directed by Louis Leterrier and written by Luc Besson. Film stars Jet Li, Bob Hoskins, Morgan Freeman and Kerry Condon. It is set and filmed onsite in Glasgow.

Plot

Bart (Bob Hoskins) is a vicious loan shark whose method of persuading men to pay him back involves Danny (Jet Li), a man with the mentality of a child; only if a metal collar around his neck is removed by Bart will he become a violently skilled fighter who stops at nothing to take down his targets. But once the collar is on, Danny is a harmless, withdrawn person, with very little knowledge of how to live as a socialized person, constantly bullied by his master Bart.

One day, Bart realizes he can end his loan shark career by regularly attending an underground fighting tournament and registering Danny to fight; in exchange, if Danny can win and survive the fights, he receives good money. However, a mishap with another criminal leaves Bart critically injured; Danny runs off to an antique warehouse for shelter, where he had met a kindly piano tuner earlier. Two days later he finds himself in the company of Sam (Morgan Freeman) and his step-daughter Victoria in their apartment, and he starts a new life with the benevolent family; curiously he is drawn closer to music while spending time with Victoria. He also develops curiosity about who his mother was when he learns from Sam and Victoria what a family is.

Weeks later Sam informs Danny about moving back to New York, where he and Victoria are originally from. He invites Danny, telling him they think of him as family, and Danny happily accepts. However, Danny runs into Bart’s right-hand man Lefty in the streets and is forced back to Bart. At the underground arena, a fight is set between Danny and deadly martial artists to the death. Despite Danny’s pleas, Bart shoves him into the pit, where he is pummeled by four fighters. Danny eventually retaliates, but refuses to kill them. Enraged by Danny’s change of character, Bart shuts him back to his cage. That night, however, Danny sneaks through his door and goes through photographs of Bart’s favorite prostitutes, finally finding one snapshot of who appears to be Danny’s own mother. He interrogates Bart, who tells him that she was simply a prostitute who is long gone. He angrily promises to make Danny repay him for the money he had lost.

Next morning, however, Danny manages to escape and runs back to Sam and Victoria, telling them what he had learned and where he was. With the two's help, Danny regains memories from his childhood past: his mother was a music student with no money, so she offered herself to Bart to get some to pay for her lessons. But one day, Bart shot her when she defied him. Bart has been raising Danny ever since, not as a human being, but as a dog.

Bart and a plethora of thugs arrive to capture Danny. Frantic, Danny hides Sam and Victoria in their closet, and he runs out to take out the thugs in the building and on the rooftop. He then faces off against an attacker (Michael Ian Lambert) with skills similar to, if not greater than his own, eventually causing him to fall to his death on Bart's car. A vengeful Bart pursues him through the building, finally catching him in Sam's apartment. He threatens to pull the trigger, all the while telling him that he was never meant for a different kind of lifestyle. But he drops the gun and instead takes out a collar, telling Danny to come home. Danny slowly advances toward the collar, but stops Bart at the last minute and disarms him. He proceeds to furiously beat Bart. Sam and Victoria both burst out and frantically beg Danny not to kill; however, a defeated Bart orders Danny otherwise. Bart then tells Danny he will always be an animal, to which Sam responds by smashing a flower pot on his head, knocking him unconscious. Some time later, Danny is with Sam at a piano recital, where Victoria is getting ready to perform. Realizing Victoria is playing what his mother played years ago, Danny sheds a happy tear.

Cast

• Jet Li as Danny the Dog
• Morgan Freeman as Sam
• Bob Hoskins as Bart
• Kerry Condon as Victoria
• Vincent Regan as Raffles
• Dylan Brown as Lefty
• Tamer Hassan as Georgie
• Michael Jenn as Wyeth
• Scott Adkins as Swimming pool fighter
• Silvio Simac as Swimming pool fighter (uncredited)
• Michael Ian Lambert as The Stranger

Release

Critical reception

The film received mostly positive reviews from critics; Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun Times gave the film 3 out of 4 stars, stating "The film is ingenious in its construction. It has all the martial arts action any Jet Li fan could possibly desire."^[2] It currently holds an approval rating of 65% at Rotten Tomatoes based on 126 reviews (83 positive, 43 negative).^[3]

Box office

In North America, this movie was released by Rogue Pictures (which was the division of Focus Features). In its opening weekend in North America, the film grossed $10,900,901 which placed it third. It showed on 1,957 theaters for an average $5,570 per screen. The film grossed $24.5 million in North America and a further $26.3 million worldwide for a total of 50.8 million.^[1] This box office result surpassed Rogue Pictures's expectations of $18 million gross at the United States box office.^[4]

Soundtrack

Danny the Dog
Soundtrack album by Massive Attack
Released	October 11, 2004
Genre	Trip hop
Length	52:39
Label	Virgin
Producer	Neil Davidge Robert Del Naja
Massive Attack chronology
100th Window (2003) Danny the Dog (2004) Collected (2006)

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	[5]

The soundtrack was created by Massive Attack. It was released under the name Danny the Dog, in 2004 from EMI. In 2005, Virgin Records re-released the soundtrack under the title Unleashed, with two bonus tracks. Neither version features the song "Aftersun", featuring vocals by Dot Allison, that appears in the end credits of the film.

Track listing

1. "Opening Title" – 1:10
2. "Atta' Boy" – 1:29
3. "P Is for Piano" – 1:57
4. "Simple Rules" – 1:20
5. "Polaroid Girl" – 2:59
6. "Sam" – 3:08
7. "One Thought at a Time" – 4:23
8. "Confused Images" – 1:59
9. "Red Light Means Go" – 2:04
10. "Collar Stays On" – 1:51
11. "You've Never Had a Dream" – 2:46
12. "Right Way to Hold a Spoon" – 3:19
13. "Everybody's Got a Family" – 1:29
14. "Two Rocks and a Cup of Water" – 2:32
15. "Sweet Is Good" – 1:33
16. "Montage" – 1:54
17. "Everything About You Is New" – 2:25
18. "The Dog Obeys" – 2:19
19. "Danny the Dog" – 5:53
20. "I Am Home" – 4:14
21. "The Academy" – 1:45

Bonus tracks

In 2005 Virgin released a new version of the album with two bonus tracks.

22. "Baby Boy" – 3:28 (Thea Van Seijen)
23. "Unleash Me" – 2:36 (The RZA feat. Prodigal Sunn & Christbearer of Northstar)

References

1. ^ ^{a b c} "Unleashed". Box Office Mojo. http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=unleashed.htm. Retrieved 2009-04-23. 
2. ^ Ebert, Roger (May 12, 2005). "Unleashed (R)". Chicago Sun-Times. http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050512/REVIEWS/50504006/1023. Retrieved April 16, 2010. 
3. ^ "Unleashed Movie Reviews, Pictures". Rotten Tomatoes. http://au.rottentomatoes.com/m/1145385-unleashed/. 
4. ^ James, Allison (May 19, 2005). "Farrow inks to star in Besson's 'Arthur'". Variety. http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117923200.html?categoryid=13&cs=1. 
5. ^ "Danny the Dog: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack - Massive Attack". Allmusic. http://www.allmusic.com/album/r713447. 

External links

• Official website
• Danny the Dog at the Internet Movie Database
• Danny the Dog / Unleashed at AllRovi
• Danny the Dog at Rotten Tomatoes
• Danny the Dog at Box Office Mojo