0.45

Picking out a great line in this film is very difficult. There were a lot of great lines in writer Gary Lennon's directorial debut. These are lines, of course, that you will not likely hear on his TV shows that he writes for.

Besides the lines, you had Milla Jovovich. I don't gravitate towards the tall skinny ones with the itty bitties, but she is hot, and she did a good job as a battered girlfriend. She was incredibly believable after the last incident, and as someone who was definitely in fear for her life.

Lennon's story has her finding a way out of her predicament that was sweet and sneaky. Using her hips, lips, and tits, she conned several people into soling her problem; including Sarah Strange ("Da Vinci's Inquest"), who played a bisexual (mostly lesbian) BFF to Milla that wanted much more, and Aisha Tyler (Charlie from "Friends," and the only reason I ever watched "The Ghost Whisperer"), She was a former battered wife that was now a counselor, and she was also very believable in the role.

Stephen Dorff (Blade) was also good, and I wish him luck in his quest for the impossible dream.

While I don't think this is anywhere near the best movie I have ever seen, I think that the character development in the roles played by Milla Jovovich, Angus MacFayden and Sarah Strange were outstanding. Without these performances, the movie would have been predictable and hum-drum. The ancillary commentaries from the two elderly women were also very humorous and added to the movie nicely. I have seen almost everything Milla Jovovich has done (shame on me), and besides "The Messenger", I would rate this as one of her better roles. In fairness, I must say that her role is only strong because of the development of the other main characters. Definitely worth the rental fee!

Based on other user's comments, the raw emotion and grit present throughout this film might be too much for some, but for me it added an entirely new dimension to the story that really helped draw me into the harsh reality that these characters live in.

I was truly impressed with Milla's performance as "Kate" and I was pleasantly surprised to see her outside of a movie laden with kung-fu, guns and monsters and instead see her in a wonderfully directed and extremely well written film.

While I've only seen Angus Macfadyen on screen a handful of times, he completely blew me away as "Big Al". He plays one of the most powerful, controlling and abusive characters I've ever seen on screen, yet he's still very much human.

There's something about Gary Lennon's writing that really helps you understand these characters and the reality they live in, no matter how dysfunctional and messed up they may be.

Overall, .45 is an amazing debut for writer/director Gary Lennon, full of brilliant acting and an enthralling story. Highly recommended!

In a dangerous neighborhood in New York City, Kat (Mila Jovovich) and her brutal smalltime criminal boyfriend Big Al (Angus Macfadyen) sell pistols and revolvers on the streets and deal stolen goods. Kat is addicted in having sex with Al and dreams on moving to the beach and start a new life. When the jealous and abusive Al beats her, the social assistant Liz (Aisha Tyler), Kat's bisexual friend Vic (Sarah Strange) and her acquaintance Reilly (Stephen Dorff) that has a crush on her advise Kat to leave Al. However, Al threatens to destroy her face if she dares to leave him. The smart Kat uses her power of beautiful and sexy woman to manipulate her friends and get rid off Al.

".45" is an amoral and cynical tale of manipulation and use of sex to achieve an objective. The story uses elements of Ken Russell's "Whore", with the characters speaking to the camera like in a documentary. Mila Jovovich and Angus Macfadyen give magnificent performances in the role of amoral losers. I liked a lot this bold movie, but it is recommended for specific audiences. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): ".45 – A Vitória é a Vingança" (".45 – The Victory Is the Vengeance")

This movie although not without it's merits struggles with identity-issues, at times it appears to be a dark comedy, others a serious drama and occasionally a thriller and it goes back and forth like that in tone without much rhyme or reason.

There is also a bundle of (fake) interviews intertwined between the scenes with some of the characters (and some family members to them) talking about each other in various aspects (the movie starts off by Milla Jovovich's character talking about how big Angus McFayden's character is in his pants in great detail).

It does have some very good scenes separately (as well as some very bad ones) but together they don't always flow that well together, and one struggles to 'like' any of the characters and when you start to 'like' someone it's just because there's another character who's seemingly worse than them not that they are particularly likable or anything.

But yeah overall, if you're a massive Milla Jovovich or Angus McFayden fan I suppose you might like it, Stephen Dorff who was the in-ital drawing point of mine to the movie has about 25 minutes of screen-time (possibly less) and it's not one of his better performances albeit just like the movie not completely terrible.