xXx, pronounced "Triple X", is a 2002 American action film directed by Rob Cohen and starring Vin Diesel in the lead role as Xander Cage, a thrill seeking extreme sports enthusiast, stuntman and rebellious anarchist-turned-reluctant spy for the National Security Agency who is sent on a dangerous mission to infiltrate a group of potential terrorists in Eastern Europe. xXx also stars Samuel L. Jackson, William Hope, Danny Trejo, Asia Argento, Marton Csokas, Michael Roof, Leila Arcieri and Tom Everett.
The film received mixed reviews[2] but was a financial success for the studios, grossing US$277,448,382 worldwide.[1] It was followed by a 2005 sequel entitled xXx: State of the Union.
Xander Cage (Vin Diesel) is a law-breaking extreme sports enthusiast, with a propensity for rebellious behavior. After crashing California senator Dick Hotchkiss' Corvette, in response to the senator championing a cause to ban all controversial video games and music, Cage's hideout is raided during a party by a SWAT Team and he is tranquilized.
Cage wakes up in a diner. As he groggily tries to familiarize himself with his surroundings, he notices things are out of place and is not surprised during a fake robbery attempt. After Cage quickly foils the "robbery", Gibbons informs him that the whole scenario was part of a test and that he passed. Cage tells Gibbons that he's not interested in this "test" and is once again tranquilized as he attempts to leave.
Cage later wakes up in the payload of a U.S. Marines C-123 cargo plane along with two other criminal types similar to Cage. The plane's cargo door opens, and Cage, along with the others, are dumped in Colombia and taken captive by a Colombian drug cartel after stumbling upon a cocaine plantation. Later, the cartel leader (Danny Trejo) arrives and attempts to interrogate the three who, believing the scene to be another NSA setup, jokingly refuse to cooperate. As the drug lord begins to use torture tactics, Cage realizes that this scenario is real and frees himself and the others as the Colombian Army raid the plantation. As Cage attempts to escape, he is captured by camouflaged NSA agents.
The next morning, Gibbons arrives and mentions that exposing the Colombian drug cartel was another part of the test. Xander is then given a choice by Gibbons: work for him or serve a lengthy prison term in Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary for his misdeeds. He grudgingly chooses government employment.
xXx goes undercover in the Czech Republic in order to find out more about "Anarchy 99" and in particular their leader Yorgi (Marton Csokas), a Russian ex-soldier who has a grudge against authority and society in general, and indeed all political ideologies, both left wing and right wing. Fitting right into the dark yet lavish and tempting underworld inhabited by the group, Xander finds himself drawn to Yorgi's apparent girlfriend Yelena (Asia Argento), and he negotiates a political asylum deal with Gibbons to save and secure a new life for her in America. However, Anarchy 99 turns out to be a terrorist faction, planning a series of chemical weapons attacks on major world cities by utilizing a high speed automated sea-faring and river-faring drone named Ahab. The chemical weapon is referred to as "Silent Night", and the formula has been missing since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. Silent Night is made of everyday chemicals that in combination are lethal. After killing millions the chemicals are designed to harmlessly disperse in water. Yorgi's ultimate aim is cause chaos and lawlessness across the entire world, bringing civilization to an anarchic end and destroying the system that killed so many of Anarchy 99's old military comrades for no reason.
Xander, with Yelena acting as a double agent, learns that Ahab is equipped with a device designed to travel to highly populated areas where it can deploy its biological missiles and continue on its world-ending journey by submerging in the ocean. An agent-turned-criminal Milan Sova (Richy Müller), unaware of Yorgi's ultimate plans, finds Xander's methods so extreme - Xander having exposed him as a spy during the initial infiltration attempt and subsequently shooting him with fake bullets to gain Yorgi's trust - that he defects in support of Yorgi, and Yelena is forced to kill him, but she reveals that she is an abandoned agent of the Russian intelligence agency, the Federal Security Bureau. Then, Xander arranges an operation with the Czech special forces to raid the remote castle, which Yorgi and Anarchy 99 have been using as their base and laboratory. Xander is then captured. Soon, the Czech police arrive, blowing up the mansion, and in the chaos Yorgi and Kirill, his sniper, escape. Xander and Yelena go after them and Xander kills Kirill using a heat seeking rocket, which was caused ironically by Kirill's habit of smoking. After Xander shoots and kills Yorgi, he speeds along winding roads in a previously acquired Pontiac GTO, and parasails onto Ahab as it speeds down the Vltava River towards Prague, capital of the Czech Republic, with a population of well over a million. Xander finally destroys the drone and the chemicals onboard as he quips, "Welcome To The Xander Zone!"
The film ends with Xander on vacation with Yelena in Bora Bora as agent Gibbons jokingly informs him that because of his actions, he has passed "The Test", the "Gibbons Test". He also says that he needs him for another assignment, as "something else has come up". Cage ignores this as he and Yelena go for a swim.
The film received mixed reviews[2] but was a financial success for the studios, grossing US$277,448,382 worldwide.[1] It was followed by a 2005 sequel entitled xXx: State of the Union.
Plot
An NSA agent on a mission infiltrates a concert where Rammstein is performing only to be killed by Anarchy 99, a rebellious Eastern European underground group. After losing the third agent assigned to the mission, NSA operative Augustus Gibbons (Samuel L. Jackson) gets the OK to run a project to find the right person to infiltrate Anarchy 99; since conventional NSA agents are too obvious to the ex-military Anarchy 99, Gibbons feels that a more brutal style of agent is called for in this instance to escape detection.Xander Cage (Vin Diesel) is a law-breaking extreme sports enthusiast, with a propensity for rebellious behavior. After crashing California senator Dick Hotchkiss' Corvette, in response to the senator championing a cause to ban all controversial video games and music, Cage's hideout is raided during a party by a SWAT Team and he is tranquilized.
Cage wakes up in a diner. As he groggily tries to familiarize himself with his surroundings, he notices things are out of place and is not surprised during a fake robbery attempt. After Cage quickly foils the "robbery", Gibbons informs him that the whole scenario was part of a test and that he passed. Cage tells Gibbons that he's not interested in this "test" and is once again tranquilized as he attempts to leave.
Cage later wakes up in the payload of a U.S. Marines C-123 cargo plane along with two other criminal types similar to Cage. The plane's cargo door opens, and Cage, along with the others, are dumped in Colombia and taken captive by a Colombian drug cartel after stumbling upon a cocaine plantation. Later, the cartel leader (Danny Trejo) arrives and attempts to interrogate the three who, believing the scene to be another NSA setup, jokingly refuse to cooperate. As the drug lord begins to use torture tactics, Cage realizes that this scenario is real and frees himself and the others as the Colombian Army raid the plantation. As Cage attempts to escape, he is captured by camouflaged NSA agents.
The next morning, Gibbons arrives and mentions that exposing the Colombian drug cartel was another part of the test. Xander is then given a choice by Gibbons: work for him or serve a lengthy prison term in Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary for his misdeeds. He grudgingly chooses government employment.
xXx goes undercover in the Czech Republic in order to find out more about "Anarchy 99" and in particular their leader Yorgi (Marton Csokas), a Russian ex-soldier who has a grudge against authority and society in general, and indeed all political ideologies, both left wing and right wing. Fitting right into the dark yet lavish and tempting underworld inhabited by the group, Xander finds himself drawn to Yorgi's apparent girlfriend Yelena (Asia Argento), and he negotiates a political asylum deal with Gibbons to save and secure a new life for her in America. However, Anarchy 99 turns out to be a terrorist faction, planning a series of chemical weapons attacks on major world cities by utilizing a high speed automated sea-faring and river-faring drone named Ahab. The chemical weapon is referred to as "Silent Night", and the formula has been missing since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. Silent Night is made of everyday chemicals that in combination are lethal. After killing millions the chemicals are designed to harmlessly disperse in water. Yorgi's ultimate aim is cause chaos and lawlessness across the entire world, bringing civilization to an anarchic end and destroying the system that killed so many of Anarchy 99's old military comrades for no reason.
Xander, with Yelena acting as a double agent, learns that Ahab is equipped with a device designed to travel to highly populated areas where it can deploy its biological missiles and continue on its world-ending journey by submerging in the ocean. An agent-turned-criminal Milan Sova (Richy Müller), unaware of Yorgi's ultimate plans, finds Xander's methods so extreme - Xander having exposed him as a spy during the initial infiltration attempt and subsequently shooting him with fake bullets to gain Yorgi's trust - that he defects in support of Yorgi, and Yelena is forced to kill him, but she reveals that she is an abandoned agent of the Russian intelligence agency, the Federal Security Bureau. Then, Xander arranges an operation with the Czech special forces to raid the remote castle, which Yorgi and Anarchy 99 have been using as their base and laboratory. Xander is then captured. Soon, the Czech police arrive, blowing up the mansion, and in the chaos Yorgi and Kirill, his sniper, escape. Xander and Yelena go after them and Xander kills Kirill using a heat seeking rocket, which was caused ironically by Kirill's habit of smoking. After Xander shoots and kills Yorgi, he speeds along winding roads in a previously acquired Pontiac GTO, and parasails onto Ahab as it speeds down the Vltava River towards Prague, capital of the Czech Republic, with a population of well over a million. Xander finally destroys the drone and the chemicals onboard as he quips, "Welcome To The Xander Zone!"
The film ends with Xander on vacation with Yelena in Bora Bora as agent Gibbons jokingly informs him that because of his actions, he has passed "The Test", the "Gibbons Test". He also says that he needs him for another assignment, as "something else has come up". Cage ignores this as he and Yelena go for a swim.
Cast
- Vin Diesel as Xander Cage, also known by his nickname "Triple X". Cage is a thrill seeking American extreme sports enthusiast, stuntman and anti-establishment activist. Idolized in some sub-cultures, xXx is also hunted by the authorities and he is offered a deal to become a spy for the National Security Agency in exchange for leniency, the agency requiring an agent who can do the current job without the military professional training that Anarchy 99's background will allow them to recognise.
- Samuel L. Jackson as Augustus Gibbons, a high ranking official in the National Security Agency who has the power to give xXx a pardon for his crimes. He uses this fact as leverage to recruit xXx for a mission he knows xXx is the only person with the possibility of succeeding- infiltrating Anarchy 99-, recognising the benefits of xXx's rebellious attitude and unorthodox methods.
- William Hope as Agent Roger Donnan, the Associate and Administrator of the National Security Agency.
- Danny Trejo as El Jefe, torturer for a Colombian drug cartel.
- Asia Argento as Yelena, Yorgi's apparent girlfriend. She was originally an Russian intelligence agent, sent to watch over Yorgi but has since been abandoned by her superiors. Yelena becomes romantically involved with xXx and he attempts to get her political asylum in the United States for her assistance in bringing down Yorgi
- Marton Csokas as Yorgi. Yorgi is a former soldier in the army of the Soviet Union, now a wealthy hedonist owning a string of locations around Eastern Europe, including a castle and nightclubs. Yorgi is also the leader of Anarchy 99, a group of militant anarchists with a disdain for all forms of government and authority, and society in general. His ultimate aim is complete lawlessness across the world.
- Michael Roof as Agent Toby Lee Shavers, NSA techno-genius and gadget specialist.
- Richy Müller as Milan Sova, a criminal and double agent.
- Werner Daehn as Kirill, a member of Anarchy 99, cigarette addict and rifle sharpshooter.
- Petr Jákl as Kolya, Yorgi's younger brother.
- Jan Pavel Filipensky as Viktor, a member of Anarchy 99 and close friend of Yorgi. He is usually with Yorgi wherever he goes.
- Tom Everett as Senator Dick Hotchkiss, a conservative California State Senator; his car is stolen and wrecked by xXx prior to his recruitment by the NSA, in an act of property destruction, as a protest against some of Hotchkiss's policies.
- Thomas Ian Griffith as Agent Jim McGrath.
- Eve as J.J., Xander's friend
- Leila Arcieri as Jordan King.
- Rammstein as themselves.
- Tony Hawk makes a cameo appearance in the Corvette scene from the bottom of the bridge driving the getaway Cadillac, (near the beginning of the film) and skating over a half-pipe at Xander's place later.
- Mike Vallely also makes a cameo as a cameraman and an extra. Pro motocross rider Carey Hart is seen in the back seat of the Cadillac driven by Tony Hawk.
- Rider Matt Hoffman exchanges lines with Xander during the party scene.
- Also during the party scene, Josh Todd (the lead singer of Buckcherry) makes a cameo appearance though he never turns around, but his suicide king of hearts tattoo can be seen on his back.
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