Vendetta

This is a great straight to video revenge flick. Nothing new here but the kills which I thought were more inventive than most. If you like the revenge genre this is one for your library. Don't be out off by the low score. If any low budget action movie deserves a sequel it's this one

Bless Danny Dyer – he tries his best. After a string of box office flops which make his good films like 'The Football Factory' and 'The Business' seem like they were set in some weird, parallel reality, he's going for a tried and tested formula – namely the 'revenge' film.

Danny's his usual cockney self. Only this time he's an ex marine returning home from jail (I did briefly recall why he was locked up, but it doesn't really matter) to find a gang of local hooligans have only gone and roasted his mum and dad alive. And, to make matters worse, the police seem powerless to arrest anyone. Therefore, Danny must take matters into his own hands (or 'ands as he would call them) and deliver his own unique brand of justice.

Unfortunately, watching unlikeable characters getting brutally murdered may be mildly entertaining (as we've all see some little thugs defacing a bus stop and wished extreme punishment upon them), but it's hardly unique any more. Ever since Charles Bronson took the law into his own hands there have been countless imitations. Some work okay, others don't. But they all have the same message – namely about how the law doesn't always work and sometimes you have to root for the 'antihero' to get the job done himself. Recently, Michael Caine released 'Harry Brown' and Jodie Foster did 'The Brave One' a few years before that. Both were equally unoriginal, but at least they had more of a budget than Vendetta.

It's an okay enough film, but it just doesn't really have anything new contained within. Danny Dyer does his best (as he normally does) to portray a tortured soul, living on the outskirts of society, but, unfortunately, he doesn't quite pull it off. There's a sub-plot about the various police officers assigned to the case (and the area in general), but many of them come across as too uncaring and inept to be believable.

If you're a die-hard Dyer fan, you'll probably enjoy this more. However, if you're just a casual fan of revenge movies, you'll have probably seen better than this. It may not be Dyer's finest work, or up to The Football Factory or The Business, but at least it's a step in the right direction.

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Special ops interrogation officer Jimmy Vickers (Danny Dyer) is out for serious revenge on the gang who violated and killed his parents. As he goes about his business, he has to stay two steps ahead of the police and his military employers who want their lethal weapon back.

Slow justice is better than no justice.

OK! Lets cut to the chase here, this is ultimately a gruesome revenge picture, the only thing new on offer here is the methods of the executions administered by the seriously brooding Jimmy Vickers. This adherence to formula, a basic modern update of the Death Wish filmic telling of a tale, is enough to send many critics scurrying around for their most poisonous pens with which to articulate their venom. Add in the Danny Dyer factor, a fella who strangely seems to rile so many in entertainment circles purely because of the genre branches of entertainment he works in, then Vendetta was never going to garner favourable reviews in many quarters.

This isn't revenge. This is a necessity.

Yet there's a question that springs to mind here, namely, what were they expecting? Tag lines and media headings said Danny Dyer enacts bloody revenge on the murderers of his parents because the law is an ass! Do critics and film fans really go into a film like this, one that isn't hiding under false pretences, expecting a scathing and intelligent observation on the lawlessness of Britain? Or a snarky aside to the failings of the law system? Seriously? Stephen Reynolds (writer and director) has put some thought into his picture, there are some potent passages of dialogue, even if they fall by the wayside as the kills come thick and fast, but it was never marketed to the highbrow seekers.

You'll be demoted before you can say Katie Price is a virgin.

Vendetta delivers the goods for those looking for a good night in with a beer and some blood and brooding on the screen. Dyer (a real nice bloke in real life) gives good value as a son hell bent on revenge, whilst he also doesn't look out of place in his fight scenes. Haider Zafar's cinematography is superb, the blues and golds magnetic in their visual appeal, and there's good and solid work done by the supporting cast.

Vendetta has fans, it really does, so much so that a sequel is currently in production. That news is sure to send those critics sitting up there in their ivory towers at The Guardian and The Telegraph crying over their shrimp salads. But you can bet your last British pound that they will be going to view the sequel expecting a far different movie to the one the man and woman of the street knows they are going to get. Death by cement! Hooray! 7/10

VENDETTA is a British vigilante movie in which an ordinary guy is pushed to the edge by the brutal murder of his parents. The film stars an older, wiser Danny Dyer as the chief character, a man who spares no expense in the way he tracks down and dispatches those responsible for the terrible crime.

At the outset, I was pleasantly surprised by VENDETTA. It bears some strong cinematography and good production values for a low budget British genre movie; director Stephen Reynolds is particularly to be commended for making this look like it stands up against the best Hollywood has to offer. And the first half hour tells an intense, dramatic story via decent editing and well thought-out scenes.

It's a pity, then, that the film can't sustain this calibre of writing, because it starts to go downhill soon afterwards. The issue is the plot, which doesn't really go anywhere as the narrative progresses. It becomes repetitive and vague, with too much time given to inconsequential characters and their actions, like Dyer's military superior and the efforts of some shady government types to track him down. All of this stuff is unnecessary and detracts from the story.

Still, the producers deserve credit for eliciting a decent performance from Dyer, and some of the supporting roles are nicely filled. Roxanne McKee continues with the potential she showed in A GAME OF THRONES, and it's always fun to see Bruce Payne even though he only appears in a cameo here. Watch out for KNIGHTMARE star Hugo Myatt in a bit part, and Vincent Regan as a military type. The violence is strong and the story gutsy, lifting this head and shoulders above the comparable likes of Nick Love's OUTLAW.

I went into this movie, not expecting anything too crappy, but nothing too brilliant either. I was pretty much bang on the money.

So a guy seeks revenge on the guys who killed his parents. He bumps off the offenders one by one, yet the police have a hard time trying to figure out who is doing all the killing. The writer tries to make the protagonist into a hero but, in my opinion, fails.

Vendetta is just another standard revenge movie, with predictable scripting and a character that you try and empathise with. However, I felt that I could not relate to the character (there was just no dimension in any of the acting) and just enjoyed the action.

If you want to watch a run-of-the-mill action movie, then Vendetta is worth a look. Just be prepared to look beyond some scripting holes.