Vendetta

Well with the Bruce Willis films winding down Im still seeing what work he has just done. This one is called Vendetta and it also stars Mike Tyson and Thomas Jane.

And the thing is...its not that bad really. I mean its far from great but its the best film Bruce Willis has been in in years. I give it a 5/10. Most of his newest films I gave a 1 to 3 rating. Its a basic vigilante film much in the spirt of Death Wish. A young girl is murdered by a gang member and her father decides to kill him instead of testifying against him. That gets the whole gang angry and they go after him.

Bad story, bad acting, bad action.

William Duncan is out for revenge when a hoodlum's son killed his high school daughter as part of an initiation killing. With the law unable to give him justice, Duncan brings war to the hoodlum's family.

You know the movie is in trouble when then the best performance comes from Mike Tyson.

This is a rock bottom rehash of both Death Wish and The Punisher. Both Bruce Willis and Thomas Jane appeared in remakes of those two films.

Shame on those who deal with Willis's affairs that they send out an ill old man to make such rubbish.

I believe this is Bruce Willis final film, like many others I've watched his recent glut of films over the last eighteen months literally stunned at how bad most of them are with only a couple barely ok. For what it's worth this is probably one of the better ones but it still has a lot of problems. Here we see Willis, along with Thomas Jane relegated to the role of interesting background character, both do a relatively ok job considering what they have to work with. The plot itself is a rehash of other revenge type films where a lead has a loved one killed them sets out to take revenge on a criminal organisation. Oh and said lead just happens to be a well trained military person.

The problem here is there are huge plot holes everywhere, it literally takes place in small town America in place which is very clean and clearly affluent yet we are led to believe there are armed gangs of drug dealers running around. This same gang require new members to kill innocents as part of their initiation too, yet whilst doing this there are zero people around in the middle of the day on the main high street? Seriously thought this up? Then we learn the local cops (all four of them) know they are selling drugs but turn a blind eye, yet they leave a protection duty because a kid throws something at their patrol car. This is where what could be a relatively fun revenge movie packed with a number of recognisable faces falls very flat. It's probably just about watchable if you want to see every Willis movie but the plot holes need some excusing.

Literally - the script is unbelievably stupid, filled with illogical actions and idiotic characters. I couldn't even comprehend how a screenplay this bad could get past the usual phalanx of development execs, producers, agents, actors and at least one director a script usually needs to please to get made. Then I checked the credits and discovered that the writer was also the director and he cranks out half-a-dozen of these crapfests every year - a bad case of cinematic diarrhea.

So I guess he doesn't have time to watch Cops or otherwise figure out how police operate in the real world or how real gangsters handle their business.

Nothing in this movie rings true. It's just a series of dumb and dumber scenes designed to accommodate a bunch of gunfire and martial arts shenanigans.

To be fair, the film looks pretty good. The cinematography is very nice and the actors give it their all. Unfortunately, for many - including the bigger name actors in this mess - that amounts to the level of thespianism usually reached by stunt men cast to pad the ranks of the bad guys in B movies. Stiff, shallow, overwrought characterizations.

Bad acting, a ridiculous script with not a drop of suspense or a single character you care about. Braindead fun for the feeble-minded.

But for Jared Cohn, an experienced writer and director to give us this nonsense, is inexcusable. The writing was worse than a 5th grade drama class would present. This was such a plot-hole riddled lazily written bag full of cliches, it was cringe. Then he had his actors pretty much acting like clowns, I couldn't take Mr. Smiley and Pipe Smoker seriously. It's a shame, because this had potential and could've easily worked in the hands of any other capable filmmaker, especially considering the decent casting. It's a generous 4/10 from me.