The bad guys can’t shoot straight and the good guys (and gals) rarely miss in “For a Few Bullets,” a movie whose lack of logic is mostly forgivable until it chucks coherence altogether.
Set in China in 1940, this comedy-adventure finds our two heroes and sure-to-be lovers (Lin Gengxin and Zhang Jingchu) planning to steal a rare treasure. Yet the plot is just a flimsy excuse to stage manic race and chase scenes via plane, truck, horse, motorcycle and more. I half-expected a Segway to show up. Under this film’s bizarre rules of reasoning, it could have happened.
It’s all perfectly silly, with Mr. Lin doing his best to channel Indiana Jones, and Ms. Zhang mixing smart and sultry. But even with the tongue-in-cheek tone, it’s impossible to overlook the exhausting series of contrivances, coincidences and sloppy filmmaking.
When a man atop a speeding train blindly casts a fishing line (where did he get the rod?) through an open window (which we just saw closed) and snags a bag in midair, it’s a scene that even the Three Stooges would have rejected as ridiculous.