| Unleashed | |
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U.S. theatrical poster for Unleashed |
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| 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 Hong Kong: May 12, 2005 United States: May 13, 2005 United Kingdom: August 19, 2005 |
| 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.
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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 But once the collar is on, Danny is a harmless, withdrawn person, with very little knowledge of how to live as a socialized person, and he is constantly bullied by his master Bart.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, Bart receives good money. After the first fight, however, Bart gets into a mishap with another criminal and is left for dead after a violent shooting. A critically injured Danny runs off to an antique warehouse for shelter, where he meets a kindly piano tuner, Sam (Morgan Freeman). Danny soon finds himself with Sam and his step-daughter Victoria (Kerry Condon) 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 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, who is still alive. Bart drags Danny back to the underground arena, where a death-match is set between Danny and ruthless martial artists. 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 drags him back home and 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 earlier that evening.
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 at Sam's apartement building to capture Danny. Frantic, Danny hides Sam and Victoria in their closet, and he runs out to take out the thugs all over the building. He then faces off against an attacker (Michael Ian Lambert) with skills similar to his own; Danny eventually causes him to fall to his death on Bart's car. A vengeful Bart pursues Danny through the building with a gun, 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, causing Sam and Victoria to 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. Danny, Sam, and Victoria embrace.
Some time later, Danny is with Sam at a piano recital at Carnegie Hall, where Victoria is getting ready to perform. Realizing Victoria is playing what his mother played years ago, Danny sheds a happy tear.
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]
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]
| Danny the Dog | ||||
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| Soundtrack album by Massive Attack | ||||
| Released | October 11, 2004 | |||
| Genre | Trip hop | |||
| Length | 52:39 | |||
| Label | Virgin | |||
| Producer | Neil Davidge Robert Del Naja |
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| Massive Attack chronology | ||||
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| 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.
In 2005 Virgin released a new version of the album with two bonus tracks.
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