Vigilante Diaries

This is a hard to rate movie.

The actors, I liked a lot of them - and not just the Asian hotties, I'll have you know. I mean the main character is a muscleman with no charisma whatsoever, but there you got Michael Jai White, Jason "Jay" Mewes, Michael "sooo annoying" Madsen, even Danny Trejo and James Russo do some cameos. Add to this serious dudes like Quinton 'Rampage' Jackson and the entire Armenian cast, who did very well, and you got some cool people there with both acting and/or physical action handled.

The story is all over the place, from a vigilante that is called The Vigilante, but doesn't seem to do anything during the movie, to the Armenian mob, terrorist nuke attacks, data hackers with weird 3D air interfaces, getting the captured wife and son back, shadow men that manipulate everything, etc. The problem is the script. It just ... sucks! Nothing is connected, no characters are developed, things go from one place to another with absolutely no emotional impact. It made the whole thing confusing and boring.

Then there is the production values. Expensive cars, weapons, some decent CGI... but the action stinks! The action scenes feel like little kids made them: no tactics, no strategy, people walking in a line without cover, ridiculous fight scenes. You feel it even stronger when Michael Jai White starts moving and you realize how pathetic everything was before that. Jax rules!

Anyway, it was a decent effort, with enough resources to make at least a good film, and with a lot more possible. Unfortunately, it isn't a decent movie: it's barely a 6.

Most actors feel like they are from cheap TV-shows. The bad guy must be telenovela actor. The script feels like it was written with mad- lips using action movie clichés. Movie is a messy mix-up of elements stolen form well-known action movie. Mostly from Deadpool, like lead actor narrating the story and fourth-wall breaks. Plot of all over the place and bad director makes this movie too both way too stupid for adults to watch sober and too hard to follow stoned or drunk. So I guess the target audience are male tween.

None of the characters are neither believable, interesting or funny.

Movie is not funny enough to be bad-funny movie. While this is not totally bad movie, it's not any way good either. Current rating of 5 is too high, this does not deserve rating above low 4.

You can't really "watch" this movie without at same time surfing on the internet looking for something interesting to pass the time.

I had been looking somewhat forward to the Vigilante Diaries after reading some interviews with the writer and star Paul Sloan. His enthusiasm for the movie had me intrigued.

The first thing that stands out from the movie is the excellent technical quality of the film. The production values of the movie definitely make Vigilante Diaries stick out from the DTV crowd. The bullet and blood effects are, although digital, done well and give the action a bloody, gritty feel.

The film is also shot in a number of location's, which is not usually seen in a DTV action movie. They travel to Russia, Glasgow, London and others. I ma assuming that Sloan and Sesma done this with their own money, to give the film an international feel. Unfortunately a lot of these scenes are not required and drag the film out. Although it was nice to see places like Glasgow in an American action movie It seems they were used just because the actor/director had the opportunity to visit these places.

Sloan as the Vigilante of the title, equips himself well as the lead. I don't think he will ever be a leading man, but is great at action, and I will look at the rest of his career with interest. Michael Jai White also shows up in a limited role, but does get a chance to show off some moves. Rampage Jackson is also good, in what is actually quite a humorous role. Of the leads, the only bum note is Jason Mewes, who is cringe worthy in some scenes, and wouldn't have been missed if he was cut from the film altogether.

As mentioned before, Director Sesma does a great job with the technical aspects of the film, and the action scenes are great. Unfortunately the film should have been edited down. Although the movie only runs to 105 minutes, it feels much longer due to some unneeded scenes. I feel bad complaining about a DTV movie being over ambitious considering some of the garbage that currently floods the market. At least I can say that it is miles better than some of the recent Steven Segal films and their like.

I would definitely recommend Vigilante Diaries to action fans, and would have given it a higher score if it wasn't for a few elements which bring it down a bit. Hopefully with Sesma's next film he will get everything right.

Jason Mewes stars as vlogger Michael Hanover, who follows an avenger known as the Vigilante. The Vigilante (Paul Sloan) and his sidekick The Kid (Kevin L Walker) are feared for their violent tactics in taking down criminals. Hanover uploads their exploits on to the web and gets popular acclaim.

When the Vigilante takes on the wrong bad guy all hell lets loose as the dead man's brother goes after him for revenge. There are rifts with rivals gangs and shadowy US black ops types are hanging around in the background. There are lots of torture scenes, frenetic shootouts and hot looking bimbos. It is just that a lot of it makes little sense.

The film has good production values and some scenes are shot all over the world, bits of Glasgow with subtitles for people talking in a Scots accent, some footage in London and Armenia.

The plot feels disconnected and never hangs together. We get chapter titles making it look like that this was a Tarantino film and just to hammer the point home, we get a lot of bizarre talking from Micheal Madsen. As a violent action comedy, the story is not good enough.

I look at the blurb before the cast and writer and director but it didn't take more than a few minutes into this movie to suspect it's a writer/director effort! He really should have stuck to cooking! It comes with a second writer who also stars but that's no great shakes of a recommendation.

It's not a dire action movie, but it does come with the usual action flick clichés, improbabilities (impossibilities!), set pieces, contrivances and, yes, stupidities (when you've got the guy where you want him, yeah, put the gun away and go hand-to-hand! Doh! Moron! (er, that's the writer(s)!)! The bad guys speak English for most of the movie but 2/3rds of the way through they start speaking in their native language and we're treated to subtitles. Oh dear...

Oh yes, the hip hop/rap music is crap, too!

But the movie mainly falls down in the explanation department. It could be me, but trying to follow who's who and who's done what to whom and why, got off to a bad start and didn't really get any easier. However, if you just go with the flow you can enjoy an action flick (with just a twinge of gratuitous torture) for what it is.

The performances are nothing to write home about but Michael Madsen does well (although he doesn't actually do much) but must have been looking for work.

It's all sort of OK, but not brilliant and there's the ever-present feeling that it should and could have been better.

If you've nothing else to do on a weekday night, give it a whirl, but have a few beers with it, accept it for what it is and wonder why you're watching this when you could be watching a 7* movie.