XXX (Rob Cohen, 2002)

In "The Precession of Simulacra," Jean Baudrillard defines simulacrum as a copy without an original and links it to our failure to distinguish between reality and artifice. Relying on Borges' story on the cartographers, who built maps as big as territories, Baudrillard argues that the "territory no longer precedes the map, nor survives it … it is the map that precedes the territory" (343). Simulacrum is ultimately "a question of substituting signs of the real with the real itself" (343). If Rob Cohen's XXX is not a simulacrum altogether, it definitely abounds in Baudrillardian simulacra. For instance, the diner scam, the Columbia mission, the seemingly dead body of the Czech cop, and the bullets in Xander's gun are all fake substitutions of reality. Xander Cage (Vin Diesel), who is more a superhero in a videogame than a secret agent, proposes a new millennium masculinity, one simulated from videogames.

When Xander appears for the first time, he uses videotape to send a political message and becomes the hero of a simulated reality. At some point, we see footage filmed by Xander in Senator Hotchkiss' car, where Xander praises videogames for their educational purposes. His spectacular and unreal jump from the bridge, filmed by his friends, makes Xander an action hero in a videogame who would get bonus points and recognition for his difficult alternation of tricks: driving a car off a bridge, jumping from it with a parachute, and landing into another car. Furthermore, Xander loses his first life as a videogame superhero when Gibbons' men shoot him at the surprise party. The next level of the game takes him into another simulated reality, the diner scene, where he loses his second life, to wake up into a further simulated reality in Columbia. Here, he drives and flies with his motorcycle through fire, exhibits courage, and helps his fellow Americans.

The next level of the game is set in Prague where Xander's mission is to save the city and the world. His solutions and actions do not surpass the interfaces and possibilities of videogames. When the Czech cops have to eliminate Kirill to get to Yorgi, Xander comes with the proper answer: "Stop thinking Prague police and start thinking PlayStation. Blow shit up." Because of the cops' ineffectual methods, Xander wants to apply the unreal solutions of videogames to the situation at hand. Consequently, he blows Kirill up with the heat-seeker rocket. The same PlayStation mentality urges Xander to descend the stairs with a restaurant tray, get to the control tower with his snowboard, or outsmart his opponents with an avalanche. When Xander parachutes himself from Yelena's car to the dangerous mini-sub, he looks for the same type of recognition he received during the bridge jump: "I wish I had a video camera. This is gonna be one hell of a trick." Again, the superhero needs a copy of his performance so that he can justify his tricks copied from videogames. After Xander's successful mission in Prague, the game is still not over because Gibbons wants to involve Xander in more levels and games where he can parade his tricks and simulated masculinity.

Using the Vin Diesel vehicle XXX as a jumping off point for a discussion of trends in the steroid action genre, the most prominent qualities are a self-conscious eclecticism with respect to the genre conventions, as well as a prolonged adolescence in the main character. As well, there is an underlying, non-ironic nihilism, this trait being a relatively new development in the genre. The eclecticism borders on being a poor man's Tarantino-esque allusiveness; certainly this is the case when we first meet Xander in what amounts to a recycling of thematic and stylistic conventions borrowed from Ferris Bueler's Day Off: the ultra straight Senator acting out the clichés of privileged white male midlife crisis; Xander stealing his car; the "don't be a dick, Dick" speech, in which you can also hear echoes of Fast Times at Ridgemont High (Jeff Spicoli and Mr. Hand); and the anti-establishment Nike-inspired politicizing before the "ultra-nihilistic" gesture of driving the car off the bridge. Most of the film's allusiveness is more directly an off-shoot of either steroid/male action films, or evolved from a frat-house hipness nourished on Matt Greoning's sense of self-conscious parody as see on The Simpsons. The variety of conventions from the genre that you pick up on in XXX is impressive: from the James Bond canon there is the obsession with refined material wealth and beautiful women, as well as the gadget laden car late in the film (the gadget agent is a wonderful parody of Tom Arnold's role in numerous action films--playing opposite Arnold: DMX and Steven Seagal, among others). However, it's interesting to note that instead of James Bond's infatuation with stuffy old cars with funny names and women who's idea of a cool first date doesn't include a half-pipe, PlayStation, plasma television, or imported Mexican beer, Xander likes "real" women (i.e women who know what to do with a pole), who know where and when to have fun (think Cabo during Spring Break), and who like cool American cars. What's more, when Xander launches a one-man assault on the bad guys' headquarters, he does it with all the forethought and detached professionalism of a drunk pledge mooning the Alumni during a Homecoming parade. Also, when the cold machinery of the NSA bureaucracy decides that sacrificing "the good spy," who also happens to be Xander's love interest, is a necessary evil, he of course violates orders (and not those dissimulated orders meant to manipulate him into breaking them, but the un-dissimulated orders, really meant, this time, to be obeyed) to go back and get the girl. There's also the convention (from what film or films I can't recall) where the bureaucracy creates or finds the perfect killing-machine/spy/predator/assassin etc. and then discovers that they can't control him, her or it, only for the intractable agent to end up saving their ineffectual bureaucratic asses, as well as the asses of everyone else in the world. Of course, Xander does all this without selling out and losing his Xtreme cred, that is, without really believing in all the dull, boring, privileged, stultifying sticks in the mud or their safe bullshit lives, or the ultra-establishment values of the people giving him orders. When Xander does save the day, however, it's off to Bora Bora with the Russian babe and a case of Dos Equis (or ten cases).

XXX goes to great lengths to mimic the structures found in every James Bond movie. This case is proven by the use of techno-weapons and gadgets, the non-bad-girl, the fast and “souped-up” cars, and even the European scenery. The glaring difference between Vin Diesel’s character (Cage) and any James Bond is slickness.

Cage’s gun has the remarkable ability to shoot various types of darts and bullets. This of course a reference to the many weapons made for Bond characters and their various uses. In one scene Cage shoots the gun to try to create an explosion. The first time he shoots it a dart comes out and is ineffective in this regard but the second time a bullet comes out and gets the job done. He then says “that worked.” This marks the difference between Cage and bond. Bond would (a) never misfire his weapons and (b) he certainly would not draw attention to his mistakes. This brings up the central issue driving this film. Cage is extreme. Unlike Bond, Cage is a rough guy who is just kind of in the moment of things. He holds an “I don’t give a fuck” attitude about everything. This is in stark contrast to the Bond character. He very much cares about what is happening; he simply is more elegant in getting results.

In the last chase scene of the film Cage is in his GTO that has so many technical modifications it needs an instruction book. Both Cage and Yelena are panicking because they need to do something about the nearby submarine but in the car “nothings working.” These two distinctions are again in stark contrast to Bond. Bond would never need a manual to use his super-advanced equipment. Bond seems born with the cool slickness required to use anything at anytime for his own benefit. Bond would also never be in a situation where panic seems to be the only solution. This poses the question then as to why the film would want a main character that seems so utterly incompetent yet so cool at the same time. The answer lies in historical context. The U.S. is not fighting the communists anymore and therefore it’s no longer a race to see who can be the best. The world seems to have all this technology left-over so now even the neighborhood skateboarder or motocross jumper could use and enjoy. This is backed up by the use of the “generic eastern Europe” backdrop where the film is set. The government of this country seems relatively at the will of the U.S. The only thing concerning America now is some random terrorists that seem so incompetent at times that the may blow themselves up before the five-time X-Game champion has a chance to kill them.

On the surface, XXX offers its audience everything they might expect from an action movie out of the 80's or 90's: muscle-head hero who exists somewhere on the margin of the law; plots to destroy mankind, toughened female as love/sex interest; and, of course, lots of things going 'bang' and 'boom'. However, the lack distinct male-ness of the lead character leads to a feminization of the proposed masculine presence.

Despite the adherence to tried and true conventions, the film is uncomfortable, it seems, with the status of its protagonist, Xander Cage (Vin Diesel). Agent Gibbons (Sam Jackson) says, "I notice you have three X's tattooed on your neck." Given that almost every scene containing Xander to this point has begun with a close-up of the same tattoo, Gibbons' reiteration of Xander's status as XXX is almost laughable. The X's that fill the screen in the title sequence beg the question: who/what is XXX? The camera seems intent to answer the question. If 'x' often stands in as a mathematical variable, the character we are given here is three times a variable, that is, his ambiguity is heightened beyond the normal sense. Who is XXX? Xander Cage. Who is Xander Cage? Vin Diesel. Who is . . . I am sorry, did you say Diesel? There seems to be no signified at the end of the chain of signifiers.

The film is so intent, then, to demonstrate that this figure is indeed XXX, any further development of the nature of this character can only surface as a side-note. Xander demonstrates his 'political' aim early in the film when he steals a senator's corvette. Xander decries the senator's position on obscene music because, as he poignantly and pointedly states, "It's just music." Xander's stance on violent video games is equally succinct: "It's the only education we got." Of course, before Xander has more time to better develop his populist argumentation, things blow up. My sarcasm aside, apart from tying the male figure on screen to the triple X's of the film's title (as well as the vast marketing campaign denoted by that sign), there is no interest in even a basic construction the nature of this character.

Xander is political--but ambiguous enough in his brief declarations that he may as well be apolitical. Xander also has the appropriate physique to inhabit the typical space of male action hero, yet the film seems uncomfortable (compared, say, to Stallone and Schwarzenegger vehicles) to display Xander's body continuously; more often than not, Xander wears a giant coat that covers him from head to foot. Our glimpses of his bare chest and musculature, then, are infrequent enough to take the place of the standard frontal-female nudity expected in an action film. Rather than confronting us with masculinity, the male body is mostly covered, briefly exposed, and connected to a character who's ambiguity embodies more feminine to-be-looked-at-ness than dominant male presence.

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Last update: 8/27/2004