Dead Reckoning

Terribly boring and one of the worst casts I've ever scene, with the exception of kj apa and Scott Adkins. No one could string a sentence together that sounded real. Especially the aunt and her niece who both sounded like they were reading of a script with no emotion or realism whatsoever.

ALTAR ROCK, renamed DEAD RECKONING to make it more commercial, is a very boring drama/thriller supposedly based on the Boston Marathon bombings. It plays out like a family drama for the most part with a few action bits added to the mix. The director did ROMEO MUST DIE and DOOM all those years ago and appears to have lost the basics of film-making in the interim period. Cast-wise, we're in for a wooden time with the exception of Scott Adkins, making the most of his small bad guy role.

Tillie (India Eisley) is a troubled girl on Nantucket Island. Her parents had recently been killed in a plane crash. She falls for cab driver Niko (K.J. Apa). The problem is his murderous brother Marco (Scott Adkins). Agent Cantrell (James Remar) is on the case.

Niko is a problematic character. K.J. plays him like a nice guy. I buy his inner conflict with his brother but he tries to be the good guy. This apparently is inspired by the Boston Marathon bombers. The problem is that this movie is nowhere near sophisticated enough to do justice to the complexity of human relationships. There are awkward turns here with Niko. I don't buy his character even without the inspiration.

What makes a good thriller? Action. Danger. Speed. Bad guys. Glorious struggle for life and death. Little to none of that do we get to see. How the heck do they dare title this movie as a thriller, when I only got thrilled when I saw the final end credits running?

The bad: Scott Adkins is a great B-movie actor. HE (and he alone) was the reason I started watching this movie, but to my disappointment I get to see 2 nobodies act in the leading roles and Scott Adkins only performing in a smaller suporting role.

Please, give us some ACTION in a thriller. Please, give us some suspenseful plots. And please do give us some solid action stars in the leading roles.

I had this movie in my Xbox wishlist for a while but never pulled the trigger on renting it. Then i saw it was part of my new Prime Video Subs so that was perfect. No more reasons to not watch it.

So at least Scott Adkins is not just a cameo. He is in a secondary role yes but he is there in the movie. A lot more than in Lights Out wich i recently watched.

This is not your typical Scott Adkins movie tough. He does not play a tough as nail fighter, soldier or agent, but an Albanian terrorist. I taught the accent was pretty good. Just don't expect the kind of action you got used to see when it comes to Scott.

Otherwise the plot was ...fine. The movie does drag a little bit but they had to establish that relationship between the 2 leads. I seen better chemistry between 2 actors for sure, but it wasn't awfull either.

Im not gonna lie, if it didn't had Scott Adkins name attached to this, i wouldn't had watch it. Its not my usual type of movie. But since i did, i did watched it and it was alright. I would give it like a 6.5 out of 10 on IMDB. But im not willing to push to a 7, so it was stay at 6. Still it will get the yellow heart on Letterboxd even if just 3 stars out of 5.