GrimPrecise I'll tell you why so serious

Bereamic Awesome Movie

ThedevilChoose When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

SanEat A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

Robert J. Maxwell Action/thriller about Pierce Brosnan as a troubled but wisecracking FBI explosive expert. There's really nothing much new here, but what you see is pretty well done. It's just another professional genre piece.There is the corrupt senator (Ron Silver) who's made a fortune from a crooked arms deal. There is the freelance explosive artist (Ben Cross) who has learned how to make an explosive substance out of something that looks, acts, and tastes like water until it is activated by stomach acid, when it throws the victim into fits and turns him into a monster bomb. (!) The senator has been making love to Brosnan's wife, which causes Brosnan to drink too much, but they get together at the end, and there is an African-American sidekick who manages to analyze the explosive water, and when Brosnan is cornered by the evildoers in the senator's kitchen he saves himself by making bombs out of ordinary household substances like Vaseline, acetone, alcohol, arugela, salt, pepper, and a touch of marjoram, and -- well, you can guess the rest. It's interesting to watch a human drink a glass of water, fall into an epileptiform seizure, burst his eyeballs with blood, and blow up, leaving only bits and pieces of flesh and shards of bone behind to mark his passing.Pierce Brosnan is a lightweight actor but a likable one. If Ron Silver were more intense he'd be a black hole. Ben Cross is the kind of villain who -- well, here's a scene. Cross is hurrying through his laboratories and the man who invented the secret explosive is scuttling along beside him, reminding Cross that he hasn't been paid yet. Cross says something like, "Yes, you're right. I owe you." Then he borrows a pen to write a check and, instead, stabs the natterer to death right through the apricot. Near the end, another henchman is stupid enough to claim he's done his job and is leaving now. Right. Cross plugs him in the back. There's no reason for any of this, except to provide a few more colorful deaths, as if there weren't enough.You might find it satisfying if you're in the mood, but I doubt you'll be surprised at much that happens.

lastliberal I do not like Ron Silver. I don't like his politics and I don't like his characters. When he gets it, I am happy. This movie made me very happy for two reasons: he has the absolutely worst haircut in the world, so I get to laugh at him throughout, and he gets his just desserts.He plays a sleazy Senator who is on the take and screwing with Danny O'Neill's (Pierce Brosnan) wife (Lisa Eilbacher). O'Neill is an FBI agent specializing in bombs. Not a great job by Brosnan, but the bomb in the film is one of the best parts as it is an original and gruesome device.Did I mention that Silver gets what's coming to him? Yes!

Greg There was a simple recipe in the late 1980's early 1990's for the common action film:Take one part flawed hero (preferably divorced, a heavy smoker and drinker), Mix in their defiance for authority figures, Add one part tragic family history (the loss of a child works best), Add corrupt politicians, Stir with mix of gratuitous violence set to a heavy electric guitar musical score, And serve with plenty of one-liners preferably after a death or tense moment has passed.1992's Live Wire follows this recipe to the exact measurements. Pierce Bronson plays Danny O'Neill, a member of the FBI bomb squad that stumbles on a plot consisting of corrupt Senators and a new form of explosive that is in the form of drinking water - when mixed with acidity of the human stomach, one becomes a walking time bomb that even the strongest Alka-Seltzer wouldn't cure. Danny has had a rough year. His only daughter died in a swimming pool accident, his wife left him (for a Senator no less – didn't see that coming!), and now he works his job uttering such unique catchphrases as ‘Man, I love Mondays'. But when Danny is assigned to a job of investigating a rash of murdered politicians where no triggering device is evident in the debris, Danny soon fears for his wife's safety, and thus his extra incentive to bring the bad guys to justice. Yawn.Live Wire is helmed by perennial television director Christian Duguay (Million Dollar Babies, Joan of Arc), and it is the advice of this reviewer that he stick to that forum. And its not that the premise of this movie is so awful, its actually the opposite. I was intrigued of the notion of bodies being used as bombers, but Duguay does not seem to know where to take the story or characters outside of the normal formulaic routine. He doesn't even try. Thrown into the mix are Ron Silver (Timecop, Blue Steel), and Ben Cross (Chariots of Fire) who just waste time and are less interesting than the robot they use to assess bomb threats. It would have been interesting to see what the movie could have been in the hands of a more seasoned or focused director. As bad as Live Wire was, it was still better than other films released in the same decade like Tango & Cash or Raw Deal. I would tell you how the film ends, but I would not want to ruin the surprise. I will leave you wondering if our hero will get back with his wife once he exposes the Senator, whether anyone will fall from a great height onto a sharp object or…wait for it…if the final bomb will be defused in the nick of time!Finally, one postscript. At the beginning of the film, we read that last decade 3,600 lives were taken due to terrorist acts around the world, but due to American's stable political system, the U.S. has been safe…until now. Somehow in this post 9/11 world, I bet Christian Duguay would want that one back for a re-write.

arunuke This movie is way too cool ... brosnan is as icy cool as he can get as remington steele ... hez a bomb expert who finds a strange series of cases happening in the city.. but no clue about the kinda explosives that were used. his estranged wife is now the secretary of the man who brosnan thinks is the next target. the movie opens up with a unmatchable pace and surprisingly maintains it till the end ...