Sarentrol Masterful Cinema

ChanBot i must have seen a different film!!

XoWizIama Excellent adaptation.

Hadrina The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Matt Kracht The plot: After a violent heist, a dirty ex-cop/ex-con is tasked with recovering the stolen money and avenging the death of a mobster's son, only to face increasing pressure and suspicion from both the cops and mob.While undeniably clichéd, the story had some real potential. The movie even starts off well, introducing all of the stereotypical characters that you expect to find in a traditional crime drama. Obviously, I wasn't expecting anything groundbreaking or unique, but, for what it was, it looked like an above-average entry. Somewhere around the middle of the movie, however, they just give up and decide to hit every cliché they can, while half-heartedly shooting a bunch of boring action sequences.The biggest problem is the fight choreography. When you cast a giant bruiser as your protagonist, people are going to have certain expectations. This movie does not meet them. There aren't enough fight scenes, and the few that do exist are terrible. None of them are believable. The action sequences suffer from similar problems.The acting was alright. There are a few B movie veterans that you'll probably recognize. Dave Bautista, the star, gives a decent performance, but I can't really say that I see him going anywhere but direct-to-video action movies.If you're a fan of gritty, urban crime drama/thriller/action movies, you might like this, but there are much better choices.

madmatthew-521-221019 Nighttime shots of Grand Rapids, Michigan in winter. Huge Hulk talks to other people, then fights with them. Some fights he wins, others he loses. Then he talks to someone on a pay phone. (Where the hell did they find all those pay phones? I don't think there are that many pay phones left in all of the Midwest, much less Grand Rapids, Michigan. I swear they had to go buy some and tie them to streetlights with coat hangers.) Then he drives. Then there's some more nighttime shots of Grand Rapids, Michigan in winter. Then Hulk talks to some other people, then fights with them... repeat for 90 minutes. There, I just saved you the necessity of watching this dreadful movie. I watched this one late insomniac night on HBO because I noticed right away it was shot in Grand Rapids, and I'm a West Michigan guy. But the location is all it has going for it. There are just flat out ridiculous occurrences in the script -- the hero goes from driving a 1980s Oldsmobile from driving a 1990s Firebird or Camaro; no explanation given for the vehicle switch. Another time, he takes punches that would leave an actual human's face looking like lasagna, pro wrestler or no. He goes to visit his ex- girlfriend, who remarks that he looks like crap. Camera cuts to his face, and he has one tiny smidge of blood on his chin. Yeah, that's just awful. Finally, I'm a little surprised the city fathers in Grand Rapids didn't complain about the portrayal of their city -- who knew there was a gigantic four-story illegal casino and whorehouse in the middle of downtown, and the entire police force was among its best customers??

Gladys_Pym Well, I tried. I sat right thru 'til the end. For a while, I was OK with the script, and then, for a while, I thought it was the directing that made this pretty mediocre effort work. 'Til I saw him trying to sneak about, which made him look like a gorilla...OK. Off the fence. It doesn't work. Reviews have said the first bit is slow - well, it is. Slow but pretty tight.Then there's a long, (a really long), pause, then, well, it finishes.And, well, it's really all down to casting. I mean, if it's not script (thin, but, well, OK), or direction, (transparent, after about 40 mins in), it's gonna be casting.Danny Trejo. Lazy casting? Hmmm. You decide....In the end, I was honestly looking forward to Craig Fairbrass being on screen, 'cos at least he can act... And I'm a Brit, and usually I think he's rubbish, but this time he took all the scenes he was in, which said, well, something...So. Dave Bautista. Better than some ex WWF debuts, but learn to act, get a better fight coreog, and stop creeping around like a gorilla who filled his pants. Oh, and Amy Smart? (who did a passable job), she's tiny. A third your weight. I mean, what were you THINKING?

John Raymond Peterson It's difficult to find a good starting point when it comes to this movie. As the author of the second review explains, the very beginning of the movie may have held some promise but the rest sure did not deliver anything better; it was all downhill indeed. I was amazed at the poor quality of the fight scenes, considering Bautista has the experience to deliver good fight sequences and has done so in the past. That can only mean one thing: production, editing and direction sucked. Okay, the script was as lame as the fight scenes; I would describe it as assembly line output writing or cookie cutter prose. In other words, the script also sucked.The pace of the movie is off; not fast enough when it ought to and chaotic when smooth is needed. If the director was a drummer in a band, the rest of the band would be better off with a "Sideman" (a.k.a. electronic drum/sequencer) and they'd kick him out the band.The cast had enough talent and experience to deliver what the production and direction would have asked, had the directors ask for the right things. Bautista is not quite ready to do dramatic scenes, yet it seems the directors (there were two no less) were determine to squeeze that ought of him. I'll bet Bautista could have directed and co-edited the fight scenes and produced better ones.Finally, Amy Smart was given another mediocre script; and again she did not pass it up. Aside from her amazing good looks, she can act the hell out of a part when it's a well written one; take for instance her role as Tracy Faucet in "The Rat Race (2001)", to name one that she can be very proud of. The whole cast was presumably given a script to read before accepting their parts; so all should share the blame for the poor result, unless of course the re-writes killed whatever life might have existed in the original version.