1992

Israeli director Ariel Vromen brings us a thriller with plenty of drama in a film that has some very intense moments, but they are not enough to give us a much more well-rounded film as we sometimes hoped for.

The script written by Sascha Penn manages to have moments of social drama that really manage to be a high point in the film and perhaps largely compensate for the weaker moments that the film experiences once it leans exclusively towards action that fails to reach a level that manages to give you the intensity of those more ghetto moments that feel precisely well done.

An efficient cast that gives us the posthumous appearance of the beloved Ray Liotta and a Scott Eastwood alongside Tyrese Gibson, who already know how to give us action on screen and continue to deliver in those moments when they provide it.

We find ourselves as spectators in a story where there are shootouts, a car chase, some heroism and some hard life lessons that invite us to have a good film that has its pleasant moments and those moments allow the film in general to come out acceptable and perhaps appreciated for its parts of social drama that really invite reflection.

Afterward we are left with a mixture of sensations where the film could have been much more complete than what we ended up receiving, which ends up deflating towards its final part, which leaves us with the bitter feeling that it had much more to give us.

Ray Liotta makes his cinematic curtain call in Ariel Vroeman's 1992, but it's a sadly superficial stock villain in a mediocre thriller that doesn't say or do much for the actor, who leaves a towering legacy behind him. In the violent mess of the Rodney King riots, single father Mercer (Tyrese Gibson) attempts to hide out with his teenage son at his workplace, a metalworks factory, during the chaos as it's in a much safer neighbourhood than his own. Of course it's an out of the frying pan into the cat and mouse situation as this just happens to be the night when vicious ex-con Lowell (Liotta) and his two sons (Scott Eastwood & Dylan Arnold) decide to rob the place, using the fact that most of the city's cops are distracted by the riots as cover. Cue a dimly lit parade of yelling, standoffs, shootouts, uninspired dialogue and thinly drawn characters facing off towards an eventual conclusion where lots of them get shot. It's almost comical how the script attempts tiny bits of social commentary regarding the riots and that infamous verdict before *immediately* getting distracted again by pedestrian thriller elements. Liotta is his typecasted self here: angry, volatile, scary and fired up, he doesn't get to do much else or display any depth beyond surface level menace, and it's unfortunate. The same can be said for the film overall, wherein a bit of atmospheric tension and feverish energy is mounted with the riot backdrop, before sinking disappointingly into the run of the mill conflict at the factory.

Either that or they're in need of seriously broadening their horizons.

10 stars? Calling it a "Perfect" film?

To rank this alongside The Godfather, Schindler's List, Blade Runner, A Clockwork Orange, Apocalypse Now or even The Lord Of The Rings is the equivalent of walking into Mordor and we know that "one does not simply walk into..." I digress.

Let's talk about this latest effort by Ariel Vroman to convince us that he is a serious film-maker.

After delivering a blistering array of career low films for Costner and Oldman (Criminal), Marisa Tomei (Danika) and the thrilless Toby Kebbel (Angel) we have finally been given the long delayed 1992.

Vromen has turned his attention to a historically and culturally significant moment in Angelino lives, April 29th 1992 and delivered what can only be described as screen flatulence in the form of a weak heist film that all but ignores the gravitas of its setting entirely.

A younger cast is meant to give us the impression that this is a vibrant, fresh take on a well trodden path, but Gibson and Eastwood do their best with a pedestrian and predictable script, whilst the late, great Ray Liotta is buried ignominiously with the lines "I did the best that I could son. But it wasn't enough".

And it isn't enough. Not enough thrills, invention, originality, style, character, humor, depth or even sense. Convoluted at times and blunt to a fault at others, this is yet another ham-fisted effort to waste our time, some poor investor's money and the goodwill of all the people roped into making accounts just to give it 10 stars, all in the vain hope that we might mix Vromen in with his Israeli counterparts; but Avi Nesher, Amos Gitai and Joseph Cedar he is not, unfortunately he's not even in the Menachem Golan and Yoram Globus league as whatever we may think, they at least found an audience.

And this the main issue with 1992. Who is it for? Fast and Furious polish without the camp over the top action, Goodfellas violence without the gritty impact and Hip Hop sentiment but with a vanilla milkshake to wash it down.

1992 tries to be all things to all people and comes up short every time. Too slight yet too garish, it somehow manages to fall in that most terrible place, the absolute middle.

You want a heist movie with a crazy backdrop take your pick from The Italian Job (1968) or Heat (1995). If you want something closer to 10 stars grab The Usual Suspects. But whatever you do, save this film for when you've seen all the rest.

This movie captures various themes and genres. At some point or another the movie is a heist movie set against the backdrop of the Rodney King riots of 1992. Along the way it's also a coming of age movie, an exploration of father-son relationships, and race relations.

Having seen the movie in a theater, to be fair, the movie has the cast, look, and feel of a better than average straight-to-streaming movie. The fact that it was given a "limited theatrical release" might just be giving the movie too much credit.

Tyrese Gibson, who plays a convincing father and "OG Merc" back in the day, finds himself thrust in the middle of a heist of valuable platinum bars, led by Ray Liotta (in his final film) at his villainous best.

What on first blush is an engaging heist movie rapidly evolves into a movie extremely derivative of "Die Hard" - nearly plot point by plot point. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing, but it does become quite formulaic.

Of course, the heist "crew", as always, includes "the muscle guy", the "smart" leader guy (Liotta), and the "clueless reluctant impressionable" guy (almost always related to the boss/leader) that you wonder why he was even brought along on the job in the first place.

A key plot point is that Gibson is bent on bringing his son to his workplace factory after-hours to "distance themselves" from the riot mayhem. What were they going to do? Spend the night there? Why not drive out of town altogether? I felt that was a fairly weak contrivance.

If you're a fan of Gibson and/or Liotta I think the movie would meet your expectations. Giving the movie a "10" (as others have done) is inexplicably generous.

I just got done watching 1992 (2024) and I liked it a lot. This is also another win for Lionsgate in 2024.

Positives for 1992 (2024): First off, I've gotta give props to Tyrese Gibson for his performance in this movie as it's one of the few less comedic performances in his career. I do enjoy Tyrese as Roman from the Fast and Furious Franchise, but it was nice to see him do something different from his usual shtick. I also really enjoyed both Ray Liotta (RIP) and Scott Eastwood in this movie. It was actually very interesting to see a movie that explores the Rodney King riots during that time. And finally, there are some decent action sequences in the movie.

Negatives for 1992 (2024): The movie doesn't really do a deep dive into the Rodney King riots and that's coming from someone who doesn't have a lot of knowledge about that. Also, the movie feels a little bit generic with its execution, but that's something to expect from a Lionsgate movie.

Overall, 1992 (2024) is a great little action thriller with some great performance that is held back by its execution at times, but I'm still recommending this movie for anyone who watches to see the last on screen performance by Ray Liotta.