Fled

Picture "The Defiant Ones" crossed with "The Net," as directed by Sam Peckinpah, and you have some idea of what to expect from "Fled."

Boasting a plot so riddled with holes that it makes all those other implausible summer thrillers — from "Mission: Impossible" to "Eraser" — seem like the work of geniuses, "Fled" is also grotesquely violent, ridiculously bloody and tries to get by on a silly, wink-at-the-camera attitude.

But if you are a fan of things that go boom (albeit in unimaginative ways), you may find something to enjoy. And I will give it this — "Fled" is fast.

The film begins with one of those explosions, as a government informant is blown to bits before he can rat on a Cuban mobster in Florida. Then the action switches to Georgia, as Laurence Fishburne and Stephen Baldwin are antagonists working on a chain gang.

When they are handcuffed together, a shooting breaks out — and Fishburne and Baldwin hit the road, which, unfortunately makes them look like a low-rent Poitier and Curtis running through the swamps.

In pursuit are the cops, of course — including the good-ol'-boy police detective (Will Patton) who busted Baldwin, and a stone-faced federal agent (Robert John Burke).

As the film progresses, we learn that Baldwin was thrown into prison for computer theft — he took $25 million out of a business account and gave $20 million of it to charity. But what he doesn't know is that the business he robbed is owned by the aforementioned Cuban mobster, and Baldwin still has a disk with incriminating information.

Eventually, Patton figures out what's going on and tries to help Fishburne and Baldwin, while Burke is a corrupt fed working for the mob.

Fishburne and Baldwin are both game and deliver energetic performances, but the script is by-the-numbers stuff, laced with lame dialogue. Desperate for bits of business, the best they could come up with are Fishburne playing his harmonica at inappropriate moments and repeatedly saying "Gotta fled," as if to justify the film's dumb title, and Baldwin making movie jokes — including one at the end about "What's Love Got to Do With It?" (which starred Fishburne).

Patton ("Copycat," "The Client") fares better; he's quite charming, though he doesn't have much to do. And Salma Hayek ("Desperado") is appealing as the inevitable woman who helps them out, though it is, of course, a thankless role.

Director Kevin Hooks ("Passenger 57") apparently thinks that if the movie keeps hopping, no one will notice it's weaknesses, but as the story becomes more and more ludicrous, they are impossible to ignore.

Most of the film takes place in Atlanta, by the way, where gunplay and explosions in public places are the order of the day — which should really please Olympic organizers, since the film hits theaters the same day as the Summer Games' opening ceremonies.

"Fled" is rated R for considerable violence and gore, a torture scene, nudity in a strip club, profanity, vulgarity and racial epithets.