Tattooed. Head shaven. Buff to the max. Attitude to spare. A walking advertisement for anti-authoritarianism. And like the letter that begins his first name (and is emblazoned into the back of his neck in triplicate by ink-and-needle), extreme in every way. Xander Cage (Vin Diesel) is XXX. He makes his questionable living by selling web videos of his outrageous, thrill seeking exploits, whether parachuting out of a stolen car as it plunges 700 feet off a bridge, or other renegade activities which invite maximum adrenaline flow or, perhaps, a very early grave. Xander has a coterie of friends and admirers in their death-defying subculture, but after his umpteenth tangle with the law, his world is about to take the most extreme detour yet...
...For what Xander doesn’t know is that he’s been “scouted” by Agent Augustus Gibbons (Samuel L. Jackson), a veteran agent with the National Security Agency whose tough attitude and scarred face mark him as a grizzled but determined warrior for America. Gibbons and the NSA are facing a desperate situation in distant Prague, where their undercover operative has been killed by a gang of cutting-edge thugs calling themselves Anarchy 99, headed by the brutal ex-Russian Army commander Yorgi (Marton Csokas) and his beautiful but hardened girlfriend, Yelena (Asia Argento).
Gibbons needs a new breed of agent to get to Prague, go undercover, and play by Anarchy 99’s own rules...or lack of them...to stop them from destroying the world and discover just how dangerous their game really is. And Xander Cage, with his astonishing physical and athletic prowess and indifferent attitude, is a perfect, if unlikely (and completely unwilling) candidate. Gibbons will use any means possible to find out if Xander is his man for the job, even if it means putting him through the most grueling series of “tests” imaginable.
For Augustus Gibbons believes that a man can change--even a seemingly hopeless if talented guy like “X,” and so, Xander is compelled to acquire a new occupation, and a revised identity to go with it:
Agent Xander Cage, code name...XXX!
* * *
Rob Cohen, Neal H. Moritz and Vin Diesel -- respectively, the director, producer and star of the high octane summer 2001 smash hit The Fast and the Furious--now catapult the secret agent genre into the new millennium with the Revolution Studios action-adventure thriller XXX.
Vin Diesel blasted to stardom with his starring roles as Riddick in Pitch Black and then as street racing legend Dominic Toretto in The Fast and The Furious following earlier roles in Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan, Boiler Room and as the voice of The Iron Giant in the critically acclaimed animated feature.
Starring with Vin Diesel in XXX is Samuel L. Jackson, one of America’s most acclaimed motion picture performers, who has created a series of unforgettable characterizations in such films as Pulp Fiction, A Time To Kill, Unbreakable and the two most recent entries in George Lucas’ Star Wars series.
Rob Cohen, one of film’s most prolific and versatile directors, has also directed Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, Dragonheart, Daylight, The Skulls and HBO’s The Rat Pack.
Neal H. Moritz has become one of Hollywood’s most successful producers with such features as I Know What You Did Last Summer, Cruel Intentions and Blue Streak. XXX marks the fourth collaboration between Rob Cohen and Neal Moritz, following HBO’s The Rat Pack, The Skulls and The Fast and the Furious.
In XXX, Vin Diesel and Samuel L. Jackson are joined by a cast of renowned international players. Asia Argento is a major star in Europe, having toplined films since childhood in her native Italy, as well as France, Great Britain and the U.S. Among her credits are Queen Margot, B. Monkey, New Rose Hotel, the French miniseries Les Miserables and several films directed by her father, cult filmmaker Dario Argento, including Trauma, The Stendhal Syndrome and The Phantom of the Opera.
New Zealand-born Marton Csokas was recently featured in Peter Jackson’s hugely successful epic The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Jerry Bruckheimer’s production of Down and Under and Alex Proyas’ Garage Days, and immediately following his role in XXX, he was cast as one of the leads of Richard Donner’s Timeline.
The supporting cast of XXX includes such talented performers as Michael Roof, who portrayed U.S. Ranger Maddox in Ridley Scott’s highly successful Black Hawk Down, as well as Thomas Ian Griffith, Tom Everett, Danny Trejo and such European talents as Petr Jakl, Jan Filipensky, Werner Daehn, Richy Müller, Martin Hub and Radek Tomecka.
Also making appearances are some of today’s most cutting-edge international musical talents, including hip-hop artist Eve, Britain’s masters of electronica Orbital and Germany’s metal favorite Rammstein, who recreate their fire-and-brimstone concert in a crumbling 150-year-old de-sanctified church converted into a bizarre nightclub owned by Anarchy 99. And participating in XXX are the biggest names in action sports today, including the legendary Tony Hawk, Mat Hoffman, Rick Thorne, Brian Deegan, Jason Ellis, Cary Hart and Colin McKay.
The production team of XXX also includes executive producers Arne L. Schmidt (Rules of Engagement, We Were Soldiers), Todd Garner, Vin Diesel and George Zakk (Diablo). The co-producers are Creighton Bellinger, who served as associate producer for Rob Cohen’s The Rat Pack, The Skulls and The Fast and the Furious and Derek Dauchy. Rich Wilkes is the writer (Airheads, The Stoned Age).
Rob Cohen has assembled some of the film industry’s most experienced and honored behind-the-scenes artists, including Academy Award® winning director of photography Dean Semler, AM, ACS, ASC (Dances With Wolves, We Were Soldiers, The Road Warrior), production designer Gavin Bocquet (Steven Soderbergh’s Kafka, George Lucas’ Star Wars: Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace and Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones), costume designer Sanja Milkovic Hays (Cohen’s The Fast and the Furious, Mission to Mars), film editors Chris Lebenzon, A.C.E. (two time Academy Award® nominee for Top Gun and Crimson Tide), Paul Rubell, A.C.E. (The Cell, The Insider) and Joel Negron and second unit directors Alexander Witt (Black Hawk Down, Gladiator) and James Arnett. Stunt coordinators Lance Gilbert (What Women Want) and James Arnett (U-571, Breakdown) collaborated with Cohen to create action sequences utilizing the full panoply of action sports within a thrilling cinematic context, whether on land, sea, air or snow. The visual effects supervisor is Joel Hynek, an Academy Award® winner for What Dreams May Come, and the special effects supervisor is John Frazier, an Oscar® nominee for Twister, Armageddon, The Perfect Storm and Pearl Harbor. The composer is Randy Edelman, who previously collaborated with Rob Cohen on Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, Daylight, Dragonheart and The Skulls.
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