6 Ways to Die

This is a prime example where less is more. The movie executes multiple perspectives and subplots to the point of exhaustion. It follows John Doe (Vinnie Jones) as he sets intricate plans for revenge by hiring six different conmen or assassins. Each of them reveals a facet of the target, along with occasional flashback and branching story, all of which ultimately end in an uninspiring conclusion.

With six hit men following their own respective plot, this is basically six short stories woven together, but not in consistent fashion. It's not an intersecting story like Snatch or even Smokin' Aces, there are many perspectives and timelines, yet they don't mesh together that well. It even feels fragmented since each hit-man has limited screen time, not enough to establish their character for overall continuity.

Cinematography is done with too much focus on style, the movie repetitively pans over to the same shots of night club, flashback or slow motion gun shot. Prepare to see these scenes again and again throughout the movie as though it wants to be edgy so badly, instead it becomes tiresome later on.

The cast is pretty presentable, action fans would be pleased to see the Vinnie Jones or Vivica A. Fox. The characters are made to cater flamboyant lifestyle with extravagant personalities and attractive ladies. This might appeal to viewer who like exaggerated hit-man or noir style, although the movie could've worked better with lighter tone or more constructed plot.

It tries to produce intense display of a revenge tale as it delves into different aspects of the target's life, yet it's gradually becoming shallower as it progresses. Furthermore, the ending feels forced, making it a needlessly complicated and boring spectacle.

I love movies, even bad ones but this was SO BAD. Tom Sizemore was in it, it can't be that bad I thought. He wouldn't have made a bad movie, he was in it for like 3 minutes. I feel stupider for having sat through the whole thing. I never write reviews but I had to warn everyone else. Don't bother... It is almost like some guy in high school watched the Usual Suspects, Pulp Fiction and a few other modern gangster movies and thought, gee, I can do this. Nothing to it... Just mash up all the cliché plot themes, scatter the time-line and have a big secret at the end and it will be so good. Maybe he thought it would launch his career and he would be so famous. Instead he has to live with the shame of knowing his friends, family and future girlfriends knowing that he was the one that wrote this god-awful story. Back to washing dishes...they say its better to try and fail than not at all. This movie is a great argument against that point.

I rarely rate a movie so low because... let's face it, there are few movies worse that this out there that I try to watch. I chose 6 Ways to Sundown because of Vinnie Jones and Bai Ling. Love them both, but guys, why did you do this to me?

From the very start one feels that something is not quite right. The dialogue is overly pompous, without adding anything to the story, the film is divided in chapters, the chapters are presented in a reverse order, there are flashbacks that need other flashbacks to explain and so on. The film is screeching "Wait for the twist! It's going to blow your mind". If you got this far into the review, trust me, it is not going to blow your mind.

Then everything is really really badly made. The people dancing in the club of the "most notorious drug dealer in North America" are dancing worse than I do. That's bad! The productions values are low. The acting is bad. Vinnie Jones spends all of his 5 minutes of acting in a car, Bai Ling is beautiful as ever, but she barely does anything, Tom Sizemore (which I really dislike anyway) dies in the first few minutes and Vivica A. Fox... why are they hiring her anymore is beyond me. And these are the best actors in the movie.

Bottom line: a complete and utter waste of time. It's always risky to watch something written and directed by the same guy, but this is not even so bad it's funny, like The Room.

Review: This is another one of those over complicated movies, which goes back and forth in time, so you have to piece the whole movie together yourself. The director tried to piece together the whole story and the end, in a "Usual Suspects" type of way but I personally had lost complete interest by then. It keeps on going a week behind in time, so it just becomes a pain to follow. The acting wasn't bad from the whole cast and I did find the storyline quite intriguing at first, especially when you follow what Vinnie Jones is saying in the car, to all of the people that he sends out to ruin Sonny "Sundown" Garcia (Michael Rene Walton) life but I ended up getting annoyed with it. I won't go into much depth about the storyline because it's basically not worth it and I honestly didn't know what was happening by the end but I will say this, it's a revenge plot with John Doe (Vinnie Jones) sending out various people to take down, drug dealer, Sundown. When I saw Tom Sizemore and Vivica A. Fox in the cast, I thought it was going to be half decent but Sizemore only has one scene in the movie and Fox makes a brief appearance near the end, which didn't have that much to do with the plot. At the end of the day, it's yet another disappointing movie from Vinnie Jones and I've finally learnt to stay away from films with his name plastered all over the poster. Disappointing!

Round-Up: This movie was written and directed by Nadeem Soumah, who brought you Searching For Angels in 2011, which also starred Vivica A. Fox. Personally I think he made a right mess of this film because the storyline was hard to follow and over complicated. He could have easily made it a straight forward movie, were the scenes flowed from one scene to the next but it seemed like he was trying to be clever, by making it go one week behind, after each dramatic moment. Anyway, it definitely gets the thumbs down from me and I won't be watching it again in a hurry.

I recommend this movie to people who are into their crime/thrillers starring Vinnie Jones, Michael Rene Walton, Vivica A. Fox, Tom Sizemore, Bai Ling and Dominique Swain. 2/10

Did not want to dislike '6 Ways to Die'. It was again not a bad, if not new, premise and Vinnie Jones has given alright performances in the past. It had potential to work, and would have done with effort being obvious and like those in front of and behind the camera had their hearts in it.

Unlike most other films starring or featuring Jones recently, '6 Ways to Die' did show effort. It just did it badly. Have seen worse films, recently and ever, but that doesn't stop '6 Ways to Die' from being a very poor film with no redeeming traits and a lot of things done absolutely terribly. There is not much to add to what has been said very well already and the review is at the risk of repeating what has been said. Just for the record, '6 Ways to Die' was watched with an open mind and not without the intent or want to dislike, let alone hate, the film, quite the contrary.

'6 Ways to Die' has very little going for it, but it deserves some credit for actually trying and putting some effort in.

The setting is okay and the thing that comes off least badly.

Sadly, it is a case of that '6 Ways to Die' tries too hard. The story has too many strands and such and does nothing with any of them, making the storytelling come over as over-complicated and sometimes incomprehensible with no development to any of them whatsoever. The archetypal ciphers passing for characters are very difficult to care for or endear to, with no attempt at development and with too little personality or likeability. Some of them even are unnecessary.

Moreover, the script is verbose, awkward-sounding and very pompous. This self-indulgence is similarly seen from start to finish in the photography and editing, which also tend to be repetitive. The music is forgettable at best and the acting is not really worth mentioning with the all-round badly used (most under-utilised and some pointless, especially a completely wasted Vivica A. Fox) cast giving performances completely lacking in vigour or intensity. Jones is one of the biggest examples of this. Michael Rene Walton comes off best.

Overall, very bad. 2/10 Bethany Cox