Made Men

O.K., So it won't win any awards. But those who have seen this have got to admit that it's a pretty good piece of work. The story is better than passable and the action level keeps ratcheting up. Add some very low-rent characters with dead-on casting, plus Timothy Dalton (Bond, James Bond...) doing quite a job as a crooked country sheriff. Icing on the cake is some top notch camera work. Plop down on the couch with a cold six within easy reach, kick back and enjoy.

While this is a HBO movie and you shouldn't expect much from it, it's often better than you think it will be. It's basically wants to be a gangster chase movie full of twists & turns and lots of high-octane action scenes. It gets close - all the actors do OK (despite some dodgy accents and rubbish dialogue), there are lots of twists but only a few of them are surprising. The action scenes are OK but they don't have any tension - basically everything just blows up and everyone has as many bullets as they need (some characters just keep reaching into their pockets for clip after clip of ammo).

This is a reasonable action movie if you see it for free on TV. If you see it for sale or rental then there's bound to be something better available.

In the small town Harmony in the countryside, Bill Manucci (James Belushi) is hunted down by hit men and he asks his wife Debra (Vanessa Angel) to travel to Los Angeles. Bill is under the witness protection program after betraying the powerful mobster Skipper. Out of the blue, the criminals Miles (Michael Beach), Royce (Jamie Harris) and Nick (David O'Donnell) come from Chicago and break in his house. They torture Bill to find where the money that he stole from their boss is. Bill does not tell and they drive him back to Chicago in a van to meet Skipper. When they stop in a gas station, they stumble upon the redneck Sheriff Dex Drier (Timothy Dalton) that asks his Deputy Conley (Tim Kelleher) to follow their van. Along their journey, the gangsters learn that Bill stole twelve million dollars from Skipper. Bill succeeds to escape from them but the owner of a drug laboratory Kyle (Steve Railsback) and his men abduct him. There is a clash between the gangs and Bill escapes again. Miles finds him and discloses that he is an undercover FBI agent that wants the money to arrest Skipper. But they are hunted down by Kyle and his gang and also by the sheriff. Will they succeed to escape?

"Made Men" is a film that combines action with comedy that does not work well. The director Louis Morneau unsuccessfully tries to imitate Guy Ritchie's style with a plot with many twists and betrayal. However the film entertains but is absolutely predictable with unfunny characters. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Traição" ("Betrayal")

This movie surprised me in a good way. From the box I got the impression that it was an action thriller but it was too funny to be a thriller, even though it was somewhat exciting.

There's a lot of nice one-liners and funny situations in this movie and James Belushi was born to do Bill Manucci, he does a great job. The rest of the cast ain't half-bad either and especially Timothy Dalton is a treat.

The story can get pretty confusing at times as new characters shows up during the film. Things get more complicated as nobody seldom tells the truth about things. If you don't pay attention things might get a bit messy in the end but I really liked it.

Louis Morneau isn't all that well known but he has done a perfectly OK job with this one and I never really grew impatient while watching the movie.

Made men is well worth checking out.

James Belushi has always been a favourite of mine since i was young & was obsessed with watching his Red Heat & K-9 films on video growing up. Belushi was always a very funny & sarcastic comical actor but who couldn't also do good drama too just watch his outstanding performance in GANG RELATED, but as a very physical comedy actor he was truly great fun to watch & i still consider his Cop Comedy Thriller K-9 (1989) & his Action Cop Thriller RED HEAT (1988) as two of my all time favourite films!!! Belushi is Hilarious & underrated in my opinion.

Made Men is a very funny, witty & action-packed Crime-Comedy-Thriller above a snitch named Bill Manucci aka: The Mouth (Belushi) who is an Ex-mobster hiding out under witness protection in a little peaceful & quiet Rural South Carolina "Redneck" town until a gang of Mobsters show up to catch him & steal back the 12 million he stole from a big time Chicago Gangster named "The Skipper" & all hell breaks loose. That's the basic plot to a very well written caper that's full of fun twists & crazy characters such as a corrupted Sheriff Dex, played by Timothy Dalton (The Living Daylights) who is having so much fun playing an evil Villain for once & a bunch of local Rednecks that look like they stepped out of "Deliverance" & that's humorously said by Belushi lol & we have the group of useless wannabe Gangsters that includes a really great performance from Michael Beach who is funny & can do great action but it's Jim Belushi that is the best part of this crazy flick that reminded me of a 70's or 80's type of film with it's style, now Belushi is hilarious as the very mouthy & cunning Bill & comes out with so much hilarious one liners & sarcastic comments i couldn't stop laughing, Belushi is a comic genius & shines once again here even if it's a Low-budget DTV flick, Belushi made the really good sequel K-911 around the same time as this in 1999 & i loved that Cheesy, funny feelgood flick & here with MADE MEN he's great again. The look of Made Men is really vibrant colours & i liked that with its bright green for the trees & bright blue for the sky & bright orange & yellow for the many explosions it's all nice to look at & i liked the old skool blues music & the overall tone here is simply to have a good fun time & i did. All in all, MADE MEN is a very entertaining & easy watch with plenty of hilarious moments & tons of stylish John Woo style action sequences & at the centre of it all a hilarious & on top comedic form, JIM BELUSHI. For a low-budget B-movie this is simply a nice piece of late-night entertainment