Blowback

The film was a waste of film, and time. After watching how things played out throughout the movie, I kept shaking my head waiting for how the various characters were motivated, and how they made the choices they made to make some sense. Throughout the movie I felt like something essential was missing which was hard to explain except for it being the time I wasted watching this turkey. I find reviews that give this an ok rating for action, or anything else hard to comprehend. Except to say this was time spent in which I felt the loss of a chance to do something interesting; instead I watched this.

From cast to acting to the story, it was B rated all the way.

We get to see a 2nd copy of Jason Statham, a 2nd copy of Paul Walker and Miami Vice cops (Don Johnson & Philip Michael Thomas) look alikes?

Quite frankly, I wish I had wasted my 90 minutes on doing something else?

The premise is an ex-con's daughter is in the hospital with some mystery ailment. Her dad needs money so he orchestrates a bank robbery. The job goes off without a hitch. His crew double crosses him and he's left for dead. He survives and revenge follows.

Movies usually have some point or message or reason for their existence. This movie offers nothing. Before the robbery a nurse told him his daughter would be cared for regardless of his ability to pay. So much for the premise. The guy committed armed robbery, so we sure as heck aren't rooting for him. He pursues revenge on members of his crew (no spoilers here) and we're not rooting for them, either. The police are trying to catch them, and we desperately want to root for them. Except the good guys are cardboard cutouts who could have been named Officer One, Officer Two for all we know about them.

Randy Coutour and his girlfriend were both laughably bad. The rest of the performances were Oscar worthy in comparison.

What is terrible is the movie begins with a thirty minute flashback of the robbery. Problem is the details of the robbery are entirely inconsequential. It could have been condensed into two sentences without impacting the plot. By the time the actual plot kicks in, it's been nearly an hour of pointless activity on screen. The final hour is slightly more engaging, but the director who couldn't make armed robbery interesting likewise couldn't make revenge interesting.

Four stars because I didn't turn it off. No additional stars because this is not a good movie.

How can Tibor Takacs, a seasoned director with almost 50 directing credits, give us this type of nonsense? For starters, he failed miserably in directing his cast. Most held their own, considering, but many needed casting direction to show some emotions in their dialogue or facial expressions in most of the scenes. Michele Plaia's acting was stale and unconvincing, but a good director can easily direct even an amateur 5 year old actor with ease, so that's all on him. Takas also dragged out too many scenes, and failed with his slow pacing, that the normally 93 min runtime felt much longer.

Then you have four writers giving us a cliched screenplay, with some cringeworthy scenes, especially the dialogue in the meet-up at the casino at the very end. Even the Italian mobsters were hilariously over-cliched with some very cheesy dialogue. A fifth grade drama class could've come up with better dialogue.

It's too bad, because although not revolutionary, the story had some great ideas. Aside from all that, you have your typical B film score - loud and overbearing, but surprisingly the cinematography wasn't too bad. If you're a fan of Louis Mandylor, Randy Couture or Cam Gigandet, you may still enjoy this - if there's nothing else to watch. For me, it's a generous 5/10.

Have to agree with some of the other reviewers that Couture is HORRIBLE. Dude cannot act and in this type of flick it stands out. The rest of the cast was good except Mandylor and the black FBI actor who was a clown.. Mandylor has never been better than B-Movie casting anyway.

Like I said in my title, not a horrible movie but a strange plot that isn't very believable but standard fare I guess for these type movies. Wasn't worth $7 but if you can see it for free then it's 'ok' if you got nothing else to watch.