No more small town sheriff taking out the bad guys entirely on his own: this time help's at hand. No more solitary hero looking for revenge: instead there is a small family there to protect. And no more rednecks set on spreading fear and terror for reasonable profit: this is organized big city crime in all its nastiness.
WT - Lone Justice is a totally different ball game from WT - The Payback and it shows: it's shot and cut following other aesthetic and timing demands, the pace is very quick, the story doesn't take its time to let itself being told, the soundtrack leaves the C&W-style and goes for gangsta-rap (there are at least two remarkable pieces there, by the way). And yes, at least one scene is as brutal as they get.
However: like The Payback, Lone Justice is almost a genre-study, bringing all elements of this type of movie together, mixing them well together and keeping them in line with a steady hand.
The characters are believable - more than that: they are in fact so realistic, it makes you want to get involved with some of them every now and then (either to hit or comfort them, sometimes even both).
The acting is outstanding, although in this one Sorbo's performance is at times too much of a good thing; he is delivering such a terrific job of making Nick Prescott alive and understandable in all of the man's struggles, that the scenes without Kevin Sorbo sometimes come over as a bit flat, which - in all fairness - they are not: the ladies in the movie are awesome actresses, the supporting male actors all good and their play's showing lots of different nuances to keep you interested, and Haley Ramm is by far the most realistic teenager I ever saw on-screen. Still: Sorbo outshines them all and - as it isn't a solo for him, but an ensemble piece - at times it would have been better to reign him in a bit on the enthusiasm with which he makes the part his own.
Personally, I cared more for The Payback's relaxed, beautifully shot High Noon-approach than for Lone Justice's Miami Vice-style. But they're undeniably both honest-to-the-core, very impressing and highly entertaining action movies, straightly told, compelling stories about people one can relate to.
If one ever wondered what movies like The Bourne-trilogy would look like without the enormous budgets: Lone Justice is the answer. And that is a good thing.
