Eu Sou a Fúria

So, the worst thing about this movie is John Travoltas wig. Other than that, this is an OK little action thriller.

Nothing new here, nothing special, but it's well directed, the acting is mostly good, the action is pretty decent, all in all OK. Could have done with a tad more character build up from the start, but hey, I just wanted the action.

With just a few tweaks here and there it could have been a lot better. It feels a little bland, a little by the numbers, and like I said, Travoltas wig is not fooling anyone. For Gods sake, just accept that your bald, man! Travolta is a good actor, he always does a decent job, a shame with those horrible wigs.

This is not to be confused with a million other low budget action movies, by crappy directors, starring actors past their prime, like Wesley Snipes, Cuba Gooding, Dolph Lundgren etc, I Am Wrath is a lot better than those. Chuck Russell (The Mask) knows what he's doing.

With a little more flair to the action (although I liked the slo-mo) and without that awful wig, this could have been awesome, instead it's just alright.

I saw Travolta on the poster and without knowing much all I could think of is Charles Bronson in Death Wish. I was close. The movie reminds me of a cross between John Wick and The Punisher (of which Travolta played the villain in the 2004 movie version).

Travolta plays what looks like your average Joe, who watches his wife get murdered right in front of him by what looks like an average car jacking in a city that's been boiling over with violence lately, but it turns out Travolta has a past that was beyond average and goes Liam Neeson on the bad guys.

Though he does not look as good as Neeson lashing out those particular set of skills on his wife's killers (but who does?),Travolta was still fun to watch as he hunted down his foes one by one, and just when he thought he was finish, turned out we have more villains to kill. It was like he was leveling up in a video game, that's how far up it goes.

Travolta himself was more convincing as average Joe wanting vengeance for his wife's death then he was at the dude who could seek this vengeance flawlessly, which is why they kept it light. Helping with this tone is Christopher Meloni who plays the dude Travolta has to call when he gets back in the game. I'm a huge fan of Meloni and he gives a great performance as the guy who has one hand still in the pot while pretending to be a barber. The chemistry of Meloni and Travolta as two old soldiers so jaded by it all that they joke back and forth as they stomp out evil. It's good banter.

This action movie was a great safety net for Travolta, I can't remember the last time I seen him in something decent, and that's what this was, very decent, very watchable from the very beginning all the way to the very end.

When the manager of Honda vehicles Stanley Hill (John Travolta) returns to Columbus, Ohio, he is welcomed by his beloved wife Vivian (Rebecca De Mornay) at the airport. Vivian is an advisor of Governor Merserve (Patrick St. Esprit), who has reduced the crime rate in Ohio, and now she is analyzing the environmental effect of a duct of oil in Columbus. When they are at the parking lot, they are approached by three scumbags that kill Vivian. Stan identifies one of the thugs to Det. Gibson (Sam Trammell) and Det. Walker (Asante Jones), but they release the criminal telling that they do not have enough evidence to keep him locked up. But Stan is a former CIA operative and he seeks out his former partner Dennis (Christopher Melon) to find justice to Vivian. Soon they find a network of corruption in very high level and Stan decides to eliminate the problem.

"I Am Wrath" is a film of revenge in the style of the franchise "Death Wish", with John Travolta in the lead role with Christopher "SVU" Meloni as his partner. The result is a highly entertaining film that professional critics will certainly hate. But fans of a good action movie will enjoy and have a goodtime watching this film. Last but not the least, it is impressive how Rebecca De Mornay is still a very beautiful woman. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Eu Sou a Fúria" ("I Am the Wrath")

Note: On 02 July 2022, I saw this movie again.

Yes here it is folks another in a long line of 'Death Wish' clones and one which quite frankly isn't much cop...

The story here sees Stanley Hill (John Travolta) hunting down the crew that killed his wife. Rather than being a one-man show Stanley gains assistance from his fellow ex-black ops pal Dennis (Christopher Meloni). In atypical fashion, Stanley and Dennis take out these punks one by one until they ultimately learn who is behind the death of Stanley's wife and why she was assassinated....

I really haven't got a problem with vigilante type films and have enjoyed other clones that have followed Death Wish (such as Death Sentence which I thought was excellent). For me, part of the problem with this film lay with its lead actor... Travolta has been excellent in the past and was great in films such as Pulp Fiction, Get Shorty and Face/Off, but something just wasn't right here. His performance here was wooden, stiff and generally uncomfortable to watch - it's hard to explain but I just never found him convincing at any point during the story. Many of the supporting performers don't fare much better and to be honest the only person who I thought made any kind of impact was Luis Da Silva Jr who was actually very good and he looked kind of menacing as well.

Of course, a weak and generic story doesn't always matters in films such as I am Wrath as long as it has some style and intensity, but the film falls flat in these respects too - there's no real imagination here, there is some style here (although I personally feel the John Woo style slow-mo stuff looks a bit lame now). You know that our 2 ex-black ops guys are going to kick everyone's ass and fight their way out of impossible situations so you're never going to fear for them. This all results in a film that passes the time, but that's all it does. I watched it, but the only feeling I had about it when the credits started rolling was indifference.

I Am Wrath isn't completely terrible, but it's the sort of film that's so generic and so safe you'll likely be predicting what's going to happen 5 minutes before it does. Like I said a generic story isn't a bad thing if you're made to care about what happens, but I just never got that feeling at any point during this film.

Some of reviews about this movie is just as bad as they say this movie is. It's an action movie.! It's not supposed to be art. It's made to entertain and I was entertained. It's an ok movie and Travolta is great as a badass vigilante. So if you're in the moo for action, this is ok.