6 Balas

To be honest, I didn't expect a lot when I was invited for the screening at Cannes. Another Van Damme movie shot in a East European country with the same director of Assassination Games (AG), a good and standard action movie with a cheap look and some solid but basic action.

And that is exactly what you get with Six Bullets but even more. This movie starts of interesting with a big actionscene with JCVD on a motorcycle..and the movie is filled with good directed fights. Joe Flanigan, who is basically the next big name in this movie, is great as Van Damme's co-star. The only thing that is annoying that the rest of the cast is filled with unknowns and Van Damme "talented" son Kristopher Varenberg. He plays, how surprising, the son of JCVD in the movie. Also some of the locations in the movie were recycled from AG. The openingsscene is shot at the same manor from AG ( the one were Scott Adkins kept his wife) It all feels very save (not mindblowing, but very watchable) and it is great to Van Damme doing some action again. Ernie Barbarash is developing as a solid director and seems to get the some good movies out off Van Damme, who seems to step of his basic moves and shows some new stuff. This movie was shot prior to The Expendables 2 and it shows. Van Damme seems to be very motivated. Not like he was in AG. Although his character has a dark secret and is kinda depressed.

Six Bullets is a fun movie. Overall people didn't like it that much. Lots of complaints about the cheapfactor in this one and comparing it to Van Damme's Cannes classic "JCVD". But Six Bullets is nothing like this movie.. It is your standard but good DTV.. Nothing more nothing less 6/10

This is without a doubt one of the better Van Damme movies in the entire course of his career. Why? Well because it is not the average generic movie that he usually makes, where he is sort of a lone underdog hero who is fighting an uphill battle against overwhelming odds, and with some miraculous force he manages to singlehandedly emerge victorious at the end, even after having received a beating that would normally drop dead a prize-winning bull.

"6 Bullets" is a great story-driven movie, in which Van Damme plays Samson Gaul, a mercenary who is working in Eastern Europe to infiltrate human trafficking rings and rescue underage boys and girls, and bring them home to be reunited with their families after these horrible ordeals. However, during one such a mission, something goes horribly awry and two innocent young girls end up dead. Haunted by the apparitions of these dead girls, Gaul ends up seeking solitude and salvation at the mercy of alcohol while trying to make a living as a butcher. A young American girl is kidnapped from her hotel and the parents seek out Gaul for help. But can Gaul redeem himself of the past and step up to the task at hand? The storyline in "6 Bullets" was really interesting and captivating, as human trafficking is, sadly, every day events in parts of the world. So with that in mind, then this story really takes on a personal approach and becomes more than just mindless martial arts entertainment.

Plus, the storyline is really helped along by some powerful performances, not only by Van Damme, who really stepped into character and showed a great acting side, but also by Joe Flanigan (playing Andrew Fayden).

The movie was nicely shot, the dialogue was good and it moved at a great pace. There was a fair amount of drama in the movie, spiced up with martial arts, of course, and also gun fights. This is really one of the better Van Damme movies that I have seen in a long, long time, and it is good to see that he is back in the game.

There were just a couple of things in the movie that I didn't really understand. In the opening sequence, how did Gaul manage to plant all that explosive in the cars parked outside the building when there was all that much security personnel around? And also when he wanted a phone number traced, it started with 555, which is a number associated with Hollywood movies, so we must assume that it is an alleged American fake-movie phone number, so why was it showing up on an Eastern Europe phone? And finally, why would most people in Eastern Europe opt to speak English first whenever addressing strangers? Wouldn't it make more sense to speak in their native language? Anyway, these touches are just small flaws that don't really have much impact on the movie. I just happened to notice this and wonder about it.

"6 Bullets" is a great addition to movie collection for fans of Van Damme. And it is also good entertainment, even if you are not particular a fan of him.

Jean-Claude Van Damme shines as Samson Gual, an ex-mercenary haunted by tragic accidents of his past job who seeks to redeem himself when he's approached by a MMA fighter who seeks Gual's help in getting his fourteen year old daughter back after she's abducted by sex traffickers.

While a bit hokey in places and some of the acting by the bit players leaving much to be desired, all the major characters do a very adequate job and the action scenes are very good. I found myself enjoying this "Taken"-esque film quite a bit. JCVD indeed has another winner on his hands.

Unlike the pathetic Steven Seagal, JCVD's recently movies all turned out to be quite good, and this 6 Bullets is no exception. I have no problem to give this movie a 6/10 rating, could even give it a higher one, if these flaws were not so obviously serious:

1) Usually, a guy so well-experienced like JCVD played, the first thing when he infiltrated the enemy compound was to neutralize the CCTV system. But the guy simply overlooked it to accommodate the scenario. 2) The 14-year girl's finger was cut off, but she didn't seem to pay too much attention to her finger wound. Usually, when we carelessly cut our finger, even it's a tiny hairline cut, the wound would drive us crazy, the throbbing pain would be non-stop even the bleeding stopped. We'd keep raise our arm and keep our wounded hand or finger upward and high enough to reduce the throbbing pain. But this director and the young actress just overlooked this important detail, making the movie suddenly became quite fake. 3) There seemed to have no refrigeration in the butcher shop, front and back. If the weather temperature was not sub zero, then what the hack?

But none of the above-mentioned flaws would devalue this movie's watchable value. It's actually pretty good, as most of the reviewers said.

To my surprise, this is playing on Google Play for only 3.99 so I rushed to watch it...twice for that matter. I rather enjoyed it. I'd rank it pretty much on the same level as AG. Both movies were on the cusp of making the leap from being "good" to being "damn good". The script in AG is a bit stronger but JC does a much better job in 6B. He is in fantastic shape and doesn't sleepwalk at all through his performance. He looks and performs the best he has in years. The action is pretty well done and there is a good amount of it. Like AG, Ernie gives us a really cool opening intro to the movie! For the most part, 6B is shot really well, considering the budget. Acting wise, I thought everyone was above average for a DTV...with the exception of Bianca(JC's real daughter). Even though she isn't in it that much, I thought her line delivery was just awful. Kris(JC's real son), however, is better than usual. He still has a lot to learn but he didn't stink up the place like usual. Flannigan was good and I liked seeing him in something other than Stargate. Neal Acree turned out another good music score, although, a lot of it may be a little too piano heavy which kind of kills the tone in a few scenes. It sometimes added a "made for TV" vibe. Overall though, this is another good step for Ernie and definitely one of JC's best DTV's. I'll probably watch it one more time before it expires. 3.25/5