Greenmail

Greenmail is an economic term having to do with corporate takeovers. This is a story about ecological activism gone awry. During a night time mission for water samples explosions occur, and someone dies. The ATF is called in and the story proceeds. The whole thing is quite predictable, and you know what is going on from fairly early. There is frequent (probably fewer than 400 times) referral to events "15 years ago" (when Stephen Baldwin was in diapers, I think,) although they have only passing importance to the story line. Since there are bombs, there is plenty of the usual dithering about wires and the normal Hollywood detachment from the real world. For example, why is there always such a ready supply of Semtex and C4? On the other hand, there is one really great line, and when someone takes a torso shot wearing body armor, it HURTS. Amazing. In general, not bad, not good. Baldwin is OK, Tom Skerrit can do it in his sleep but D.B. Sweeney could have been replaced by a rock and you wouldn't notice.

"Greenmail" is all about bombing. Especially the old "which wire do I cut?" suspenseful moment we've all seen many times before and will see many times again in this shabby flick. Rowan is an ATF bomb expert (yeah, right) and Baldwin's a "greenie". Someone's blowing up anyone having anything to do with the corporate rape of the environment around Seattle and Rowan and Baldwin team up to catch the serial bomber. "Greenmail" is just one series of obvious contrivances after another with little to offer beyond some big bang pyrotechnics. Recommended only for the most hard up couch potato. D+

As a card-carrying member of a half-dozen or more environmental groups, I was attracted to `Greenmail's' advertised plot about the mismatched union of an activist and an ATF agent to stop an environmentalist gone over the edge into a spree of fatal bombings.

Alas, the environmental angle is nothing more than an excuse for a very standard genre thriller where the villain blows up a lot of people. Even the potentially interesting Seattle setting (actually, the ever-popular Vancouver, save for a few establishing shots) is not utilized to any particular advantage.

The competent cast does what it can with a basically uninteresting script and surprisingly languid direction. What suspense there is consists of far too many scenes of people hesitantly snipping wires on bombs which either blow up or do not with fair predictability.

Too bad. There was the opportunity for some genuine ideological conflict between the two main protagonists and a more thoughtful motivation for the cardboard villain. The one very minor plot twist is reduced to a simple throwaway line because we really don't know much about why the characters do what they do to their friends or to others.

Just another average(made for TV) movie with Stephen Baldwin(as we expect from him)It has some nice explosions but overall its a bit shallow. The acting is just above average(although its clearly they all did it for the cash only). the story is not really exciting and has no surprises(yeah, all the clichés off bombing movies are in it). i must say i've seen much better(backdraft) but also much worse(ticker).The directing is just very average but for a B movie good enough! They picked some nice areas to film(I think it's filmed in Canada) So if you ain't got nottin to do and it's on TV you could give it a try!! But only if you have really nottin to do,OK!!

Spoilers

Stephen Baldwin played a environmentalist convicted of blowing stuff up who has to help the police find his serial bomber former colleague in this STV actioner.

There wasn't much characterisation and the plot wasn't anything that the average film watcher hasn't seen dozens of times before. The climax wasn't particularly climatic either.

Still, for a video movie it had its fair share of things blowing up which prevented it from being completely tedious. It had Tom Skerritt in too, who did his best but couldn't save this film from being more fodder for empty weekends. Watchable for one viewing.

4/10