In Today’s Spy Games, Worldliness Is Not Enough

Whether he was played by Sean Connery, Roger Moore or Pierce Brosnan, James Bond epitomized the upper-class spy: a suave sophisticate, most comfortable in a tuxedo and high-priced sports car. Xander Cage, the spy played by Vin Diesel in the upcoming action thriller “XXX,” is something else again: rough, unpolished and crass--and proud of it. As Cage likes to say, he wants his drink “shaken and stirred.”

“He is not interested in the Kennedy-era idea of sophistication--like what kind of cigars you smoke, brandy you drink, martinis you sip,” said the film’s director, Rob Cohen. “He is from the guts of the American culture.”

“XXX,” which opens Aug. 9, updates the spy-movie genre by tapping into the rougher and cruder sensibilities of the hip-hop crowd. While their parents were weaned on Bond, younger audiences have shown an interest in heroes drawn from society’s underbelly. The idea, according to screenwriter Rich Wilkes and Cohen, was to create a sort of punk James Bond--an Everyman anti-hero.

Revolution Studios, which produced the picture, and Sony, which is distributing, are betting that this spy movie with an attitude will attract Generation X and younger audiences--a demographic that James Bond has failed to capture. It is an audience Cohen and Diesel rode all the way to a box-office bonanza in last year’s surprise hit “The Fast and the Furious.” With his dark, multiethnic look and streetwise air, Diesel is a glamorized reflection of today’s moviegoers. If all goes well at the box office for “XXX,” Cohen and Diesel will re-team for the sequel, which Cohen says will be set in Southeast Asia.

Meanwhile, the 20th Bond installment, “Die Another Day,” will be released in November. MGM executives know that Bond is perceived as being too stiff, too WASPy and too buttoned-up among many youth. In marketing meetings, they have been brainstorming ideas to make him hipper, younger and more identifiable to younger audiences, while at the same time not driving away the older, loyal Bond followers.

At one point, Revolution executives were contemplating marketing “XXX” with the tagline: “Not Your Daddy’s Spy Movie.” But Cohen, who did not want to alienate all the daddies and potential moviegoers, talked them out of it.

Still, where James Bond skis, Xander Cage is an extreme snowboarder. While Bond wears a tuxedo, Cage wears a hairy, dirty, shaggy coat. Where Bond is loyal to Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Cage is out for himself. Where Bond lives it up at the Ritz-Carlton, Cage sleeps in a cold hole-in-the-wall filled with rats. The only trait they share in common is that women find both irresistible.

Wilkes said that “XXX” represents his contemporary twist on a genre perfected by Bond.

“I couldn’t even begin to touch [Bond creator] Ian Fleming,” said the 35-year-old screenwriter. “All I was trying to do was make a character that filled the little niche of pop culture that I was interested in.”

But Cohen wanted to ruffle Bond’s perfect feathers--no disrespect intended.

“I grew up on Bond ... watching ‘Dr. No’ when Ursula Andress came out of that water,” said Cohen, referring to the 1962 classic. “ ‘XXX’ is going to take those expectations and, without putting down this great tradition, do back-flips off those conventions into a new realm.”

Wilkes originally thought of “XXX” as an Internet cartoon. But then he pitched the idea to Revolution Studios executive Todd Garner, who jumped on it for a feature film. Wilkes, a punk-rock follower since the early 1980s, said he was inspired by the take-no-prisoners style of the music in creating his anti-authoritarian spy.

He wanted to create a character for the music--not the other way around. So rap, acid metal, punk, rock (in Spanish, English, German and Russian) play a central role in the film.

“There is nothing in cinema that is parallel to what Eminem is doing or these awesome punk bands,” said Wilkes, who also wrote “Airheads.” “Everything is sanitized and clean and John Tesh-like. I thought there has to be an antidote to the squeaky-clean heroes we’ve seen of late. Not all rough-talking, foul-mouthed, bald, tattooed guys are bad.”

Wilkes said every generation needs its own anti-hero, whether it’s Marlon Brando in “The Wild One” or Dennis Hopper in “Easy Rider.” Sometimes it’s OK to alienate the older crowds, he said. And considering that the most avid moviegoer in America is the 14-year-old boy, it is surprising more anti-establishment movies are not made.

“It reflects the way people are feeling. Why not turn off the baby-boomer generation? We don’t all have to love the same things.”

Rather than being recruited for his exemplary skills, Xander Cage is brought into the world of espionage by force. He is caught stealing a state senator’s car and driving it off a bridge--all for kicks and the promotion of his extreme Web site. To escape prison time, he joins the CIA, recruited to infiltrate a ring of Russian gangsters who are trafficking in nuclear secrets.

The CIA needs him almost as much as he needs them--their buttoned-up agents are the antithesis of cool and are routinely getting plucked off. In the movie’s opening scene, a scene Cohen likes to call “The Tuxedo Killed Him,” a techno-punk band is spewing fire and angry lyrics in German to a crowd of multi-pierced, leather-clad, disaffected youth. A dapper man wearing a tuxedo barges into the concert. He might as well be wearing a bull’s-eye. Immediately, he is spotted by the Goth/punk gangsters he was hired to kill and they gun him down--the concert revelers think it’s part of the show.

Samuel L. Jackson, as the rigid CIA officer who recruits Cage, describes the targets this way: “dirty, dangerous, tattooed--you know, your kind of people.”

While Cage’s attitude is a reflection of a youthful cynicism and comtempt for authority, Cohen and Wilkes wanted to redeem him in the end and offer a hopeful message.

Xander Cage experiences a journey to self-discovery. He finds he is actually a patriot. The movie, which began filming in November after the terrorist attacks, ends on an unapologetically patriotic note--complete with an American flag parachute that Cage uses to save the world from nuclear destruction.

Cohen, who has seen his career rise and fall over many years in Hollywood, says he always wants his teenage son to take a lesson from his movies.

“The moral journey of Xander Cage is what I really wanted my 15-year-old son to take away from it.... You have to become aware that there is a big world out there and we are all interconnected,” he said. “The Internet is not just a toy to download video games--it is telling you that what goes on in Cairo will affect you in Lake Tahoe. We cannot bury ourselves in this idea that this is a fun culture and that our only obligation to our society is to make enough money to continue our fun.”

Wilkes says everyone has the capacity to do good if given the chance.

“If you are a punk kid with a swastika, do you really want a Fourth Reich or do you just want to be different?” said Wilkes. “Even punk rockers love puppy dogs.”