The Suppressor

Totally unoriginal and for the most part very poorly acted. You will never see any of this cast in Holyrood let alone Hollywood. The timing of the dialogue is atrocious which suggests the director and editor need a lot of help. The script doesn't help but decent actors might have done more with it. It is the penalty of low budget movies. Nobody gets paid that well and you get what you pay for. However, the script is atrocious. Adding a bit of classical music was a decision made to give the film a bit more class but it, again, is badly edited in and not at all original. Quite frankly, if Puccini, Schubert and Beethoven were still alive, they would Sue!

Ara Paiaya directs himself as the star of this action flick, as apparently he's done before. It's the reliable premise of an average Joe, widowed by drug-crazed burglars, taking it upon himself to get the guys what done it, and wipe out the rest of the gang, up to the top dog, including the dirty cops and politicos on their payroll. Great, if overly familiar, baseline.

But Ara the director is stuck with himself as a charisma-impaired star. He's going full Bronson with none of the panache... or believability. Other than a mild show of grief after his wife is brutally murdered, we're watching a stiff go through the motions of a hero. Even the moments of martial fighting are lackluster compared to almost any contemporary action flick from any of the countries cranking them out in high-octane style. Ara the director made one smart move, casting his wife, Raquel in a small part (NOT his character's ill-fated wife) that allows her to serve up one of the film's best, albeit brief, performances.

Overall, this one stays too low-key throughout to raise anyone's adrenaline, and is further dampened by the least-surprising plot twist in recent memory. Eminently missable.