Precious Cargo

Saw 'Precious Cargo' because Bruce Willis has done good films and given good performances in the past, 'Die Hard' is a genre landmark and his performance is iconic in that. The title and poster also intrigued and similarly the idea for the story sounded sort of interesting, despite a lack of originality. Expectations were not high though, because Willis has been past prime for a while (several bad films and has looked tired and disengaged a lot) and has been in a lot of stinkers lately.

'Precious Cargo' is yet another not good representation of him, if not as bad as 'Vice' and especially 'Reprisal'. 'Precious Cargo' is a better film to that while having similar, actually even the same, faults. It fails in the action and thrills stakes, faring very unfavourably in relation to other films seen in the genre, lots of silliness and endless predictability. Not hating it with pleasure, it's my honest opinion and my negative feelings towards it are regrettable.

Not much redeemable here, with the best thing being the promising opening scene before the film quickly goes down south in quality and not only doesn't ever recover but it gets worse.

However, for someone highly billed, Willis is used poorly (again, am seeing a pattern here), he looks tired and like he didn't want to be there. Claire Forlani also looks disinterested. The worst performance comes from Jenna B Kelly, whose performance is an awful mess of being obnoxious and generating little personality.

Visually, the film does lack cohesion, is pretty sloppy in camera work and editing and the colour scheme is so unappealingly murky. The music is too loud, should have been used far less and some of the placement is inappropriate. The direction is suggestive of inexperience, there is just no energy, momentum or finesse, the non-action oriented parts are handled so indifferently and the action is shot in a way that can be difficult to follow.

Dialogue from the very start to the predictable climax is riddled with clichés and cheese, with toe-curling howlers aplenty, and what little there is of the story has no surprises, fun or tension, is very pedestrian in pace and fails to make sense or have signs of maturity. Tension and suspense are non-existent. 'Precious Cargo' goes overboard on the ridiculousness and lack of plausibility and at other points it takes itself too seriously. What there is of the action is clumsily choreographed and routine at best, too reliant on convenience too and with not much exciting or tense. The characters are not compelling or easy to get behind, too sketchily written and with character behaviours and traits that frustrate. Do not expect every character in every film to be likeable when characters in numerous films purposefully aren't, but it is an issue if there are characters meant to be rootable and 'Precious Cargo' has that problem.

Altogether, other than the opening scene a very bad film. 2/10 Bethany Cox

Mark-Paul Gosselaar gets to show his action hero chops(I don't think he's been in a movie like this as the lead before).

Bruce Willis making a habit of playing the bad guy in these, for the paycheck, Direct-to-Video movies that get limited theatrical releases because he's got second billing in it.

Daniel Bernhardt was more worthy as Willis' formidable henchmen.

It is just an action movie, plan and simple, about a cool truck heist. Some decent gun play and a few cool back and forth one-liners (nothing that will go down in history like yippee ka-yay),that are indeed fun for the moment.

If you need to be entertained it gets the job done.

This is a lame, low budget video on demand action film with the usual $1 million a day appearance from Bruce Willis. The only notable performance is from Willis's henchman, Simon (Daniel Bernhardt) when he talks to some of his boss's floozies at the poolside.

Duplicitous crook Karen (Claire Forlani) attempts to cheat crime boss Eddie (Bruce Willis) from a heist job but when he finds out he threatens to kill her unless she makes good for the full amount.

Karen goes for help to her ex lover Jack (Mark-Paul Gosselaar) who has his own crew of misfit hustlers and persuades them to steal an armoured car containing valuable diamonds but Eddie's henchmen are in hot pursuit and Jack is unsure how much he can trust Karen.

Precious Cargo has little that is original, it is a passable time waster but the smart alec dialogue from Gosselaar and his crew quickly becomes tiring and the acting from leads is bland.

Boy, did wisecracks degenerate pretty severely since Die Hard and the good ol '90s. This faceplant reeks of cheap thrills, direct-to-DVD actors and, of course, a 150 year old Bruce Willis. I'm about 2/3 into the movie and I've already forgotten half of the plot. Mark-Paul Gosselaar, the Michelangelo of Thieves apparently, acts with the kind of confidence only a guy who thinks Wakeboarding is an extreme sport would. And did I mention every girlfriend is a sniper? Granted, no adults were involved in the making of 'Precious Cargo', or it wouldn't have been made at all. This train wreck is what happens when subpar directors try to make movies for millennials – the most unlikely-to-happen plot in the universe right now.

An action movie with some good scenes, some good lines (best of them being a drunk Nick Loeb asking 'What brings you to Thailand?' and Mark-Paul Gosselaar replying 'Thailand? We are in Mississippi man…'), some good ideas and some good characters (Logan, played by Jenna B. Kelly above all).

In the end, however, the cast fails to catch, the plot doesn't entertain and the film doesn't work.

Probably Claire Forlani shouldn't be older than MP Gosselaar, surely some key scenes (the boat chase, the final showdown, the heist…) should be more convincing.

And the presence of Bruce Willis only worsens the things because it heightens the expectations. A few more films like this and his tough-guy character risks to become laughable.