Arsenal

"Someone once asked me why I stick up for Mikey. They clearly don't have a brother." JP (Grenier) has always looked up to his older brother Mikey (Schaech). As adults JP is the one that is supporting and trying to help Mikey anyway he can. Mickey finds himself in trouble once again and goes to a mob boss for help. After receiving a phone call JP once again is in a position where Mickey needs his help, but this time is different. First of all, this movie is not bad at all. It is a decent B movie. On the other hand, it is extremely generic and I'm sure even just reading my synopsis of the movie you can predict everything that is going to happen and how it will turn out. John Cusack is in this for about 2 minutes and his character is pretty useless. Cage is, as usual, over the top and I'm not really sure what he was going for with his acting in this. All that said, most people that watch movies like this watch for the action and not the acting or story that much. If you are one of those people you will enjoy this. Overall, generic and predictable. A really good made-for-TV type movie that is nothing to rush out and see. I give this a C.

I really didn't know anything about the movie and so I didn't have any high expectations. Not like people who actually looked at the cast and saw John Cusack and Nicholas Cage there. Yet it still disappointed, with the slow boring script and the pointless scenes.

This should have been the side story in a police procedural episode, not a standalone film. There were interesting shots, especially at the end, so I can't fault the director too much. The acting was OKish, mostly from Adrian Grenier and Johnathon Schaech (man, when did he get so massively ripped?!). Nicholas Cage played one of his wacky roles, but he wasn't interesting, threatening or amusing, simply weird. And Cusack is a supporting role, just as Cage, to get people to watch the film in the first place.

Bottom line: the subject alone has been done to death, so the film needed something extra to make it interesting. They tried with the cast, but without a good script, it is just a waste.

This is a very good action movie, love the slow mo make all the shootings look sick. Really enjoyed this 🙂

Poor Adrian Grenier. This movie was not the best laid plans for a future as a leading man.

The 1st clue was Nicolas Cage himself. I like Cage and all but he tends to suck the very essence out of a film with his over the top bad acting.

Grenier plays the good little brother trying to make sure his bad big brother gets on the right path after being on the wrong one for so long. Semi ironic as it's big bro who 1st introduce baby bro to the right path. It's a story I literally herd a thousand times, in fact I think I've seen at lest one movie a week with this subject. The stories of the two brothers is weak, and not implemented very well by the filmmakers or the actors playing them.

And there was absolutely no point for John Cussack to be in this film. They could have saved some cash and gotten someone else. Spend it on some better action scenes.

So Grenier's leading role status is up in the air. I hope he has an awesome real life entourage he can lean on.

It's a skipper.

http://cinemagardens.com

Nicolas Cage portrays another over-the-top cartoonish character here, as he plays Eddie King, a sadistic and psycho mob boss who talks like he's always constipated and sports a horrific looking hairpiece. He decides to kidnap the screw- up brother (Johnathon Schaech) and extort his straight arrow successful brother (Adrian Grenier) for 350K.

Often in the film, there's extreme brutal bloody violence, sometimes in slo-mo, and, as expected, lots of explicit language and on screen drug use. The movie is directed by Steven C. Miller with a first-time screenplay from Jason Mosberg.

Overall, unless you like intense bloody violence or wants to laugh at Cage's character here, I don't really see the point in one viewing this flick.