Com as Próprias Mãos 3: Vingança Solitária

Good movies are original, some leave a message or touch you in a certain way, but sometimes you're not in the mood for that.

I wanted something simple, no thinking just plain action when I watched this one. It started of good and was quite entertaining, so why a bad review. Well in the end the movie lost it's credibility. The storyline wasn't that cheesy at all, the action was not too special but overall good, acting was OK, so more than enough to satisfy my needs. But all got ruined because things happened that were over the top, and it left me with a bad feeling. They should have put a little more effort in making everything credible and would have gotten a 7 in the "no thinking just plain action" category. So in conclusion if you know you'll get irritated because things are happening that seem completely illogical: don't watch! otherwise I'd say go ahead...

Having watched "Walking Tall: The Payback" and "Walking Tall: Lone Justice" back to back, I can say that they are both equally good. Where "Walking Tall: The Payback" was more story-driven, "Walking Tall: Lone Justice" is more action-driven. Good or bad, up to the individual viewer, of course.

The story in "Walking Tall: Lone Justice" is about Nick (played by Kevin Sorbo) who has moved from Dallas to start a new life with FBI agent Kate (played by Yvette Nipar) and her daughter Samantha (played by Haley Ramm). But Nick soon finds himself fighting to protect those who he love against ruthless drug cartel gang members as Kate is involved in a trial against them.

Less thorough storyline compared to the "Walking Tall: The Payback" movie, but more action. So this trade off will of course appeal to some in the audience.

The acting was good for a movie of this type, just don't expect anything extraordinary. Kevin Sorbo was without a doubt the driving talent carrying the movie.

"Walking Tall: Lone Justice" is a mediocre action movie, but is still worth watching if you got an hour and a half to pass and just need a mindless action movie for entertainment.

I accepted that at first, I thought this movie should be bad, due to the cruel pictures of trailer and what's happened on Walking Tall: The Payback. However, after I watched Walking Tall: Lone Justice. I thought it didn't too bad because this movie is not too cruel and it had an OK plot.

Lone Justice (I will use this name to refer to this movie) had the spin-up plot after they based The Payback on Buford Pusser's Walking Tall. However, it had both of good and bad in this movie which I will describe next...

I can't disagree that I hate this movie's cinematography. It made this movie very silly. I was not sure what the director thought about movie production but the pictures was shaken liked the horror movie for all time! (for example, the first and the last scene of the movie which showed the skyscrapers or the death scene of Octavio, the pictures was shaken!) This made the movie very interested? You thought wrong. The production crew should made the better cinematography because your cinematography's direction made this movie very corny!!!

Even the cinematography was bad but I thought the movie was fun. Someone may think that it was very bad and unacceptable. But in my opinion, Lone Justice had the good plot at the one level. Many viewers could set this movie in the type of typical action movie with mediocre action scene. So do I, but not at all. The plot was acceptable and the action scene was not too bad. Nevertheless, it has some plot hole. For example, the scene which Agent Marcia Tunney was tortured and suffered the great pain. I thought it was a joke when Nick Prescott told her to help for herself. He didn't do anything for her! He only helped her by kill some henchmen and then "Hey! Go for the telephone and call for help!" and then exit without any help. Hey! Prescott! this woman suffered the great injury! Your torture was not better than her! She was cut out off her finger but why you didn't help anymore?

Oh! It was also very interested in Prescott's tortured scene. I saw the comment of the IMDb fan that it was similar to the scene in Rambo II. Yes! it looked like that. Braddock: Missing in Action III had the same scene which the protagonist was tortured by electrified. But this movie made the electrified scene liked a joke. I believed that if Sylvester Stallone and Chuck Norris watched this scene, he would be laughed and thought "Hey! You didn't get extreme like me Sorbo!"

I also stunned about the climax scene, it was very easy and corny especially, the death of Octavio and Maxwell. The ending scene was radically changed from The Payback which ended like the cowboy style. Maybe some viewer (or anyone who try to watch Lone Justic) could get stunned like me. However, the ending scene made me a little disappointment.

For the cast, everyone got through the role. Kevin Sorbo still acted as the heroic character and very kind especially, women. (Except the scene with Agent Tunney at last) Yvette Nipar had got her role as the Agent Kate Jensen same as The Payback. Err.... I was surprised about the role of Haley Ramm's Samantha Jensen. Samantha had only her mother; meanwhile, Nick Prescott was only the boyfriend of her mum. That was ridiculous, many one should think that Prescott would be married with Jensen and had the family. No it wasn't, she had her 12-year-old daughter! (Could be guess, she was born from Jensen and her ex-husband because the info about Samantha's father was unknown)

For the conclusion, My mind was changed after I had really watched the movie. Lone Justice didn't bad as I thought before. The man assaulted woman was not seen in the movie. The plot was acceptable at one point. Even the action scene was mediocre and the cinematography was very bad, this movie could made fun at the one level.

This movie is just another average action flick, but it could have been so much better. When the guns come out they really needed some choreography help. Someone like Andy McNabb - who made that brilliant action sequence in Heat as they move up the street from the robbery - would have turned the dull action sequences into something special. Because the rest of the film was alright - predictable but watchable - better than you would expect from this type of movie. Then came the final scene, the show-down, the one we had been waiting for, but was like watching something from the A-Team in the 80s. They shoot wildly, nothing hits, and they run around a house trying to kill each other - same old, same old.

No more small town sheriff taking out the bad guys entirely on his own: this time help's at hand. No more solitary hero looking for revenge: instead there is a small family there to protect. And no more rednecks set on spreading fear and terror for reasonable profit: this is organized big city crime in all its nastiness.

WT - Lone Justice is a totally different ball game from WT - The Payback and it shows: it's shot and cut following other aesthetic and timing demands, the pace is very quick, the story doesn't take its time to let itself being told, the soundtrack leaves the C&W-style and goes for gangsta-rap (there are at least two remarkable pieces there, by the way). And yes, at least one scene is as brutal as they get.

However: like The Payback, Lone Justice is almost a genre-study, bringing all elements of this type of movie together, mixing them well together and keeping them in line with a steady hand.

The characters are believable - more than that: they are in fact so realistic, it makes you want to get involved with some of them every now and then (either to hit or comfort them, sometimes even both).

The acting is outstanding, although in this one Sorbo's performance is at times too much of a good thing; he is delivering such a terrific job of making Nick Prescott alive and understandable in all of the man's struggles, that the scenes without Kevin Sorbo sometimes come over as a bit flat, which - in all fairness - they are not: the ladies in the movie are awesome actresses, the supporting male actors all good and their play's showing lots of different nuances to keep you interested, and Haley Ramm is by far the most realistic teenager I ever saw on-screen. Still: Sorbo outshines them all and - as it isn't a solo for him, but an ensemble piece - at times it would have been better to reign him in a bit on the enthusiasm with which he makes the part his own.

Personally, I cared more for The Payback's relaxed, beautifully shot High Noon-approach than for Lone Justice's Miami Vice-style. But they're undeniably both honest-to-the-core, very impressing and highly entertaining action movies, straightly told, compelling stories about people one can relate to.

If one ever wondered what movies like The Bourne-trilogy would look like without the enormous budgets: Lone Justice is the answer. And that is a good thing.