Setup

In Detroit, Sonny (50 Cent), Vincent Long (Ryan Phillippe) and Dave Hall (Brett Granstaff) are friends since high-school. They reunite to successfully heist 5 million dollars in diamonds in a daring operation. However, Sonny and Dave are betrayed by Vincent that shots them and steel the diamonds.

Sonny miraculously saves and seeks revenge against Vincent. Meanwhile the owner of the diamonds sends a hit-man to find Sonny and Vincent while the powerful mobster Biggs (Bruce Willis) forces Sonny to steal 2 million dollars from a Russian mafia. Sonny seeks out Vincent not only to revenge, but also to get rid off Biggs and his gangsters.

"Setup" is a disappointing film with a poor screenplay. Bruce Willis, Ryan Phillippe and James Remar have minor participations and the character of 50 Cent is not well developed with an ambiguous personality. The director Mike Gunther makes another weak rip-off of Guy Ritchie's style and this comedy-action movie does not work. My vote is four.

Title (Brazil): "Sem Lei" ("Without Law")

Maybe the second half of this movie gets better. I don't know because I couldn't stand watching any more than I did. I forgave the cheesy film look, figuring it was intended to be part of the look and feel of calibre of these characters - low grade hoodlums and unprofessional professionals. The sequencing of events is clumsy. The believability of what each of the characters is doing is way low. How one of the mob guys shoots himself in the head while waiting for "a bag" (was it pot? big deal!) is highly questionable. That the diamond guy ("hit man") finds our protagonist so easily, then tells him he's got a week (a week!?) to make good...well it was about there I began to consider to quitting this movie. How did they get Bruce Willis to sign on? Willis as the "mob boss" was...well, what can I say. His smirk just didn't convey Godfather. This movie is not worth watching.

Well this type of genre, i.e action, crime, heist is right up my street. Add Bruce Willis to the frame and you would think that I was onto a winner. Unfortunately this was not the case. I found the film to be poorly directed, the acting wooden and the storyline predictable if slightly erratic. After reading the synopsis I kind of thought I would be in for a decent hour and a half. I found myself dropping off 55 minutes into the film which for an action film is pretty poor. Of course, I say action but the truth is there was very little action in it. Add to it a strange religious undertone which I suppose is to signify the lead role is looking for redemption and you get a complete mismatch/ conflict of interests. I give it a generous four out of ten but take into consideration this is about the lowest I have ever scored a film.

Seeing it had a good cast I thought this could be a good film, wrong! It's just a over hyped B grader by using a few big name actors, sure Ryan Phillippe is in it here and there but Bruce Willis is in it only for the name, as he is in this film for around 20 minutes, Bruce is only in it to prop up this film. 50 cents is just not credible as an actor, and Bruce and Ryan can't help him raise the bar past the level of B grade.

The story is nothing new, it's predictable and plain boring, and that music score! they are really trying to make this sound like a serious crime drama, but they failed, it just proves again it takes more then well know actors to make a good film.

Would I recommend this film? yeah sure if I did not like you! give it a miss, walk your dog instead, wash your car, ring your mum! as this film is not worth wasting your time on.

Solid 1 out of 10, it would have been a zero but I did love that GTO, the main high light of the film.

Barely interesting since this scenario already have been used thousand times. A heist, then betrayal (a necessary twist, without it the storyline simply wouldn't take off), then the guy who was betrayed and gun down miraculously survived, then seeking revenge, then the party that has been robbed sending out pros to seek out the robbers....then another 3rd party suddenly budged in, then things getting complicated (this we usually call a twist in the plot), then blah, blah, and blah. You know it and I know it where this story would end, you don't need me to show the direction, do you? The performance of Bruce Willis is so 1-dimensional stereotyped without any feeling like watching a dead fish pretends to be a human being. His acting is so pretentious with limited emotions and passions, without even trying to break some new ground for his later day acting transcendence or enhancement. There are more better senior actors to play this role but the casting agency seemed still believe this guy got some box office attraction. Believe you me, dude, he's not, because he can only play the same dead fish like character in different titled movies.

The other two young actors indeed tried very hard to play the roles but since the screenplay is so formulaic and so predictable, they are just two very uninteresting characters in a very boring predictable movie. The only thing that needs to be recommended to these two younger actors is that they have shown been working out daily, so the long chase in the busy business area didn't show any fatigue or heavy breaths in the end. Obviously, the chase have been shot and edited together scene by scene, so they could still look so tireless.

This is a very predictable and very forgettable old movie with a new title and different actors. Did you ever try to drink a lukewarm water?