Force of Nature

Love him or hate him, Mel Gibson always gives 100% in whatever he does.

And he is the only reason to watch this typical Emmett/Furla time-wasting action picture. Here, subbing for Bruce Willis who usually is the nominal "star" of these poorly-written & directed tax write-offs, Mel does his best as an ex-NYC cop trying to stop a group of bad guys robbing a run-down apartment block during a hurricane.

Whatever talent indy director Michael Polish one showed is now depleted as he puts his cast -- most of them looking like they're sleepwalking except for an earnest performance by Stephanie Cayo -- through the requisite 90 minutes of low budget thrills.

The question that needs to be asked is: With every other person in Los Angeles writing screenplays, why can't EF Films find something worth the time and effort? Why waste talented people on such schlock?

By Force of Nature they mean something else ... well at least that's what I'd say. You may disagree. Mel Gibson has quite the easy role to play here. He plays the "too old for that ..." thing, that you may know from another output of his, but played by another actor. Emilie Hirsch is supposed to be the main character here and Kate Bosworth too. The latter being the one that has some interesting moments and developments.

Overall this is a neat little thriller and action movie. Nothing really impressive, but nothing that is really bad either. I may be a bit too nice with my rating - especially considering other things I've rated, but overall you'll find me being generous rather than the other way around. The bad guy (also known from the Dexter TV show amongst many other things) is quite charismatic, but has as many flaws as the movie itself ...

Hard to believe this flick cost $23 million to make. It's very cheaply done.

It's also very poorly written and completely implausible. In fact, some of the scenes are downright stupid.

Mel Gibson is barely in the film. Or at least not as much as the other characters. But he's decent . The other actors not so much.

What it comes down to is this -- it's a really horrible script. The guy who wrote this is really amateurish. In a better writer's hands, this could have been a good movie.

This is one of those movies where you keep wondering how the hell it made it through quality control. Is there even such a thing, or did someone just have some money to launder, because telling a good, or even just a coherent story definitely doesn't seem to have mattered. Some cliché bad guys, a flimsy reason for them to shoot at some good guys and of course a stupid nazi subplot shoehorned into the mix because there can't be a Hollywood movie where we aren't reminded of that, can there? It's boring and tedious, there is no suspense, the characters are lame and nothing they do makes any sense. You don't care about any of them, so when the guy and the girl in between gunfights connect through small talk about their previous lives, it's nothing but awkward. Mel Gibson was just a side show too.

Absolute waste of time. Stay away.

I like watching Mel Gibson, take him out of this movie and I would give it 3.

Mel isn't exactly William Wallace in this movie, far from his best.