Duels

The good: The cinematography is really nice (except for a view hiccups).

The bad: Jean-Claude Van Damme does not so bad as usual (isn't much in the movie)

The ugly: Characters and story The whole movie doesn't make any sense - not even a little bit. I don't wanna spoil for the brave that sit trough the movie - but its bad, really bad.

In this movie you will see characters (yes I mean plural) that have no soul, are cliché, unbelievable and really stupid.

And if I say stupid I really mean it - almost nobody of the main characters would live that long if they where like this forever (but the movie didn't mention a chemical plant accident where everybody got insane - so ...)

For me it's always surprising to see that really bad scipts are getting money (and we talk about millions) - where clearly no money can't be made. OK yes Tarantino or Robert Rodriguez could make this film work (but hey they would cast the right actors and give them some crazy lines to work with)

10-years ago five pulled off a robbery. Four got caught and went to prison. The 5th got away with the $10-million. Now the Four have completed their sentences and go after that 5th person. The twist is that the 5th person cannot remember where he put the money. Of course, the Four don't believe him.

John-Claude Van Damme is the top name in here, but he doesn't have much to do, actually hardly anything. His name is here to draw us in. I bit. This story is really about Bishop (Lennie James) who is now the Sheriff in Butler a town outside Las Vegas, Nevada. He is that 5th person, and we are led to believe he really doesn't know where he hid the $10-million. We know he is the 5th man because we see him in flashbacks as part of that robbery years ago.

This takes too long to become interesting. No one really stands out. Bishop comes the closest, but we see that Cole (Grant Bowler) appears to be the leader of the Four, but he fizzles too quickly until the last 10-minutes. The main guy was supposed to be Stillman (Van Damme) but he just sat around and didn't say much at all. He wasn't "the guy."

I think the main problem with this movie is that too much screen time was spread around too evenly and we were at a loss to decide who to key in on. See? But, we still went with Bishop as the main guy. There should have been some cat and mouse stuff between the Four and Bishop. This was like a short story made into a full length novel and there really was no place to go. The plot was a very simple one and there wasn't much material for a full length movie. See?

The script needed work and no one took the time to make it right. The acting all around is good with the supporting cast including Josh Henderson and Alfred Molina, but the last 10-minutes is all the movie you needed to see. Everything before that was slow and boring with quickie scenes that sometimes seemed to be unrelated to the main job of getting to Bishop. It all took too long.

Oh, you will find out where Bishop hid the money.

And, another thing: when you see a movie with a goofy title as Swelter, stay away. (3/10)

Violence: Yes. Sex: No. Nudity: No. Language: Yes.

The worst van dammed movie I've ever seen.. Slow-paced annoying supporting characters and a forgettable performance by can dammed who seems added just to lure you with his name as a draw. I've seen commercials more exciting. Not to mention the weird blues soundtrack that made me feel I was watching a horrible episode of in the heat of the night. By the time the movie ended I wanted refund for time spent watching. Avoid this toilet bowl of flick . It will do nothing but disappoint. Maybe a committee should be made to halt horrible movies from being distributed.. We could call it the saving your time foundation

This is the worst film I have seen this year.

The plot makes no sense whatsoever. The characters are stupid - I mean really stupid - and the script is somewhere between rubbish and turgid.

The director clearly wanted to make a Tarantino style western/gangster movie but could not direct or write a script get anywhere near this.

One of those films where you realise half an hour in that you have another hour of this to go but you might as well as you are already in it..and then an hour later you realise you made a bad decision an hour earlier.

I have to write more apparently to publish my review...so now the film is annoying me more by making me type more about it. This should definitely be near the top of your avoid list.

I bought this film only because it was a mix up between western and crime movie, and also because there was JCVD in a supporting character. Besides this, as we say in french, this feature doesn't break three legs to a duck. Nothing exceptional in this forgettable movie. I did appreciate the wink to THE WILD BUNCH; the sheriff's name is Pike Bishop. I watched Sam Peckinpah's masterpiece at least a dozen times in my life, and Pike Bishop sounds quite familiar to my ears.

It's a new wave crime film, in the line of Quentin Tarantino's world, as we watch since the early nineties now.

An acceptable time waster, no more, just for rent, and certainly not for buying.