Body Armour

This movie is a waste. A waste of time, a waste of money and a waste of the actors involved.

Chazz Palminteri has delivered a few really good performances in his career, a few excellent ones and Til Schweiger while not the greatest actor can usually do a well enough job.

Not in this movie, with this script, with this dialogue.

One more thing, one of the other reviewers has called this a typical Euro-Movie and that is complete nonsense.

If any, it is an untypical Euro movie as it has no aspirations at all.

Anyone who has any knowledge about European cinema would laugh at a classification like that.

This is a movie about a bodyguard who has to protect somebody but can't do a worthwhile job of it.

Like most action movies of this sort, it loses logic about 20 minutes in.

The bad guys are too bad for their own good, but they look good in fancy suits and with nice weaponry.

The good guys are too dumb - tough but dumb.

Now, if I had to relocate a witness, I would not take them to places that would be popular or hot or known to anybody.

I would throw them in back of a beat-up car, wearing rags and take them to some place that nobody would ever think of.

They would listen to me or I would bust their teeth.

However as in every other witness relocation/protection movie - logic is misplaced for what is supposed to be a story.

The performances are bad, the story is bad and the action is also bad.

However for a comedy, it's not too bad...if you want a little bit of action with your funny.

With a whole bunch of useless and needless locations, scenes, action sequences and dialog as well as major plot holes - this could be one of the lost comedies that you may find interesting.

The nightclub scenes are pretty interesting...walking around in ski masks in a nightclub and nobody notices.

Brandishing weaponry across a dance-floor and nobody moves until gunfire is sprayed.

Yep, it's the little things that can make a movie good or it's the little things that can make a movie horrible.

This does the latter.

Action scenes --especially those taking place in Barcelona-- are filmed as if in slow motion, with telegraphed blows. The characters behave oddly. The former hit-man --whose life has been threatened by fellow gangsters intending to stop him from giving testimony before the courts-- is paraded by his bodyguard (the movie's hero) all over Barcelona. The bad guys are incredibly clumsy as well: horrible aiming with the guns and slow motion movements, thus allowing the hero to conveniently kill all of them. The two police officers assigned to assist in the protection are dumb: they open the door at a simple knock, without preparing themselves (and, lo and behold! both are instantly killed by the bad guy, at the other side of the door). And so on. One point for the effort of making an action movie in an unusual environment. They should keep trying: it was a good idea. But, even though it is a relatively simple genre, shooting these action films takes some practicing and learning too.

Not going to waste more time on this, just to say it is genuinely one of the worst films I've seen.

18 minutes in we get the dramatic uttering 'This matter needs to be dealt with swiftly, and with the utmost urgency'. That kind of sets the scene for the quality of dialog to come. And the acting is worse.

If you read this review before seeing the movie, save yourself.

I'm afraid to say I watched most of it, but only in that 'watching a slow motion train wreck' kind of way. It was genuinely bad. So bad you cant look away.

And now the review helper says my review is too short. How much more of my life must I waste on this horror?

Til Schweiger plays John Ridley, former bodyguard to a US presidential candidate, who retires after royally screwing up and getting his client killed. Three years later he's persuaded to come out of retirement for 'one last job', only to find his new client is Lee Maxwell (Chazz Palminteri) - the hitman who killed the presidential candidate. Ridley's job is to keep Maxwell alive long enough for him to inform against the Russian (I think) mob, all the while controlling his desire to kill him himself.

This film is so bad it crosses that fine line into 'entertaining'. First, as far as bodyguarding goes this really is amateur hour:

Ridley (to a colleague on the candidate's security detail); 'Where's your body armour?' Colleague; 'Ah, I didn't bother, it's too hot'.

Wow, wonder what's going to happen to *that* guy...

And,

Ridley (when said colleague is injured, leaving Ridley as the *only* agent with the candidate); 'I can't help him. It may be a ploy to draw us out.' Presidential candidate; 'If you don't help him, he may die. Can you live with that?' Ridley; 'Okay, you wait here.'

Those aren't spoilers; they both occur in the first five minutes!

It doesn't get better. A squad of bad guys in balaclavas and carrying assault rifles, and bodyguards brandishing twin pistols - in full view of *everyone* in a crowded nightclub - don't cause *any* panic until they actually start shooting?

The plot is about as original as a Steven Seagal movie, but with even more laughable decision-making and cliched dialogue. Actually, I could totally see this with JCVD as Ridley, and the bloated Buddha himself as Maxwell. Not that that's ever going to happen.

As an action flick, 3/10; as a laugh, 7/10! Averages out at...

5/10.