Publication Date: 06-18-2026

Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever (2002) review

Dir. Kaos

By: Steve Pulaski

Rating: ★★

As of this writing, Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever is the worst-reviewed movie on Rotten Tomatoes, harboring an ignominious 0% with 117 reviews. This is an opportune time to remind (inform?) people that Rotten Tomatoes doesn’t “grade” movies like they’re school projects. For example, a movie that has an 88% approval rating doesn’t proclaim it’s a B+ in quality. It means 88% of film critics who saw the film gave it a positive review. Intermixed in any film’s score, including Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever are probably lukewarm and below-average sentiments, but in Rotten Tomatoes’ binary terms, those reviews are considered the movie “rotten.”

Now that I’ve clarified that for the umpteenth time, onto what is one of the worst-reviewed movies of all-time. Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever was released in 2002 to atrocious reviews and failed to recoup its budget. Its legacy is relegated to those, like me, who somehow determine their life incomplete until they see it for themselves. Even fewer brave souls emerge with the kind of level-headed take I have. I’ve not only seen significantly worse movies than Ballistic, I’ve seen worse movies this month.

This isn’t a review attempting to zag when everyone else has zigged for the last 24 years. This is not a good movie. But it’s not unwatchable; far from it. It actually does a few things well. The film is the product of Alan B. McElroy, who penned the screenplay back in the late-1980s so it could collect a whole bunch of dust before being rewritten by Peter M. Lenkov and fast-tracked into production in 2001 by Franchise Pictures. The film is directed by Wych Kaosayananda, who is credited as “Kaos,” in one of the coolest, authentic mononyms I’ve ever seen. Moreover, it effectively makes the film live up to its unintentional promise made in the opening minutes: “directed by Kaos.”

Apparently, the original title of the film was “Legion,” and later, “Gunner,” both depressingly generic, but not as ungainly as Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever. Say it aloud. It’s as if you’re trying to trigger your own gag reflex. Calling the film “Ballistic” would’ve indeed made it retain the same lack of creativity as the previous titles, but it wouldn’t be such unsightly, garbled nonsense.

The Kaos begins with a mother (Talisa Soto) seeing associates of her husband, Gant (Gregg Henry) abduct their son (Aidan Drummond). All security for the family is exploded by Agent Sever (Lucy Liu), whose steely eyed, soulless expression conveys more than words ever could. She doesn’t say much going forward either.

Meanwhile, FBI operatives have been investigating Gant and his “assassination device” — some goofy MacGuffin substance that is injected into people to kill them — for a while. Miguel Sandoval ropes Jeremiah Ecks (Antonio Banderas) back into the fold to try and track down Sever, a former Defense Intelligence Agent, like Gant, and take her into custody. It’s then when you discover that the film’s loathsome title (and poster, for that matter) is a lie. Ecks and Sever aren’t enemies. They have a predator-and-prey relationship until they don’t.

Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever is a marathon of car chases, acrobatic stunts, martial arts choreography, guttural dialog, and a hell of a lot of explosions. It’s mind-numbing at times, but not incompetently executed. In fact, Kaos and cinematographer Julio Macat (whose repertoire mostly consists of comedies) devise one brilliant shot. It’s the outcome of a rooftop sniper getting whacked and falling to his death, the camera descending with him — showing his flailing motions and panicked facial expressions with all the detail afforded by slow-motion — before crash-landing onto a vehicle at ground level. Kaos has stated that he’s never seen the finished film. I hope he’s at least watched that scene.

While the film isn’t sickeningly loathsome as its reputation suggests, it is indeed quite dull. It was clearly lobotomized in the script phase, with scenes plucked, rewritten, inserted, hamfisted, and condensed, so both quality and coherency suffer greatly. Antonio Banderas tries to add gruff and menace to a woefully underwritten character, and Lucy Liu’s role is thankless in the way it forces her to brood with little personality. According to Kaos, he modeled the film after the Steve McQueen film Bullitt, and infused the template with martial arts flare with Joel Kramer as the guiding hand for the stunts. Glimmers of a singular vision are present here, but Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever is another case where studio-heads got their mangy mitts on the project and consequently screwed up the entire thing. Even with all that baggage, I contend that Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever deserves more of a reevaluation than it does a skewering.

Starring: Antonio Banderas, Lucy Liu, Miguel Sandoval, Gregg Henry, Talisa Soto, and Aidan Drummond. Directed by: Wych “Kaos” Kaosayananda.