White Elephant

White Elephant (2022) is a Heartfelt Send Off For Bruce Willis. After announcing earlier this year that Bruce Willis would be stepping away from acting, due to his Aphasia diagnosis, it is hard not the watch White Elephant with that in mind. However, White Elephant is much more than a swan song to this beloved action star, it is a very good action romp.

The film is the long delayed brain child of former stunt man, writer, and Director Jesse V. Johnson. The plot is simple-"When two cops witness an assassination attempt, a ruthless crime boss orders Gabriel Tancredi, an ex-Marine turned mob enforcer, to eliminate any and all threats." However, like many Johnson films the plot is just the pretext for showcasing the rich characters and launching point for great action and violence.

Johnson has a penchant for broken characters with characteristics that make it hards not to look past their awful deeds, and be romanced by them in their quasi-redemption. This is true whether he is is the writer and Director of his own material like Savage Dog, Accident Man, or the brilliant Debt Collector films; or whether he is Directing someone else's story, like Nina Bergman in the masterful, Hell Hath No Fury. Michael Rooker has the distinction of filling these shoes in White Elephant as the nearly retired, mob enforcer faced with a dramatic choice to do what he was hired to do, or do what he believes is right. This is his best performance, by far. He is very memorable in this role.

Olga Kuryenko is equally broken as the subject of the mob's pursuit, and she does a good job holding her own as the tough cop fighting to survive. While not a true buddy film, she is a good compliment to Rooker.

The supporting characters are well supported by a strong cast, many that afficionados of Johnson's films might recognize. Vadhir Derbez is very watchable as the young upstart looking to make a name for himself in the mob world. I couldn't help being reminded of Ross McCall's performance as another Gabriel Tancredi in Johnson's The Beautiful Ones, a very underrated film. John Malkovich has a small role as a mob lawyer, but not one second he is on the screen is wasted-this is Malkovich in top form.

As for Willis-you can not un-know what you know about his medical condition while making this film. I read a lot of speculation and commentary about his performance in light of it. As for me I will refer to a prior review of a "B" rated, straight to video performance by Willis; "When Bruce Willis is in the movie you almost always know what you are going to get and even when the film is bad there is still Bruce Willis." Nothing has changed my opinion in this good film about Willis's performance.

The cinematography, action, and violence is at the level you can expect from a Jesse V. Johnson film. No modern filmmaker can do more with a modest film budget (reported at $15 million) than Johnson. His films are fun to watch and White Elephant is no exception. Violence, gun play, and bloodshed abound, and is well placed.

While I have been fortunate enough to interview Johnson twice I am still amazed at how deep his appreciation and homage to good film runs. This film has homage to other great films, old and newer, classics, and even to Johnson's prior films. Derbez's character opines, late in the film, that it "is like a f@cking Western." Yes, I would agree, White Elephant (2022) is a modern western, or, at least, a tribute to Westerns.

I love Johnson films. I recommend White Elephant.

White Elephant premiered on AMC+ and is streaming on multiple PPV services.

Unfortunately, Bruce Willis' health problems are very prominent in his performance in this movie, which is a significant distraction and breaks the flow of the story. He obviously struggles to portray his character and deliver lines. Such a shame.

Otherwise, the movie is an OK action movie. The performances are solid with believable characters portrayed well by the cast.

The story is fairly standard for an action movie and there is nothing particularly memorable about it.

If you are a Bruce Willis fan you may find this difficult to watch, so best give it a miss.

Don't bother watching this because if you've seen the last ten movies in which Bruce Willis makes a cameo, this one is just more of the same. Gratuitous violence, tiresome, faux tough-guy dialogue, and mind-numbingly stupid gun-play don't make for much when it comes to entertainment, as if just throwing these elements into a pot will somehow produce anything fit for adult consumption.

Does this film have a story? It's hard to say when they hurl an endless torrent of blood and bullets at the audience in an attempt to distract you from the fact that if there is a story, it's too unoriginal to even mention. I've never played a video game, but I would imagine that Grand Theft Auto has more of a plot than White Elephant.

You can't even blame the actors in the movie. It's like pulling a bunch of garbage from the dumpster and expecting someone to cook a meal with it.

A few things writers of action movies should already understand:

• Drywall will not stop a round from an assault rifle, neither will a car door. Some high-powered rounds can go through an entire house and still kill you.

• If you want to kill someone on the sly, don't use a gun as it's too messy, especially if you are then going to take the body somewhere else to disposed of it. Just take the live guy to the disposal area, then get rid of him. If the cops stop you on the way there, it's a lot easier to explain a guy in the back seat than a corpse in the trunk.

• Try reading books so that everything you write isn't exactly like the last twenty movies you streamed. I doubt Hollywood writers can be bothered to read books, this seems obvious from their output of puerile doggerel like this film.

• If you can't choreograph a decent gun battle, stop thinking that five more in the film will improve things.

The villains in this movie are the dumbest ones ever. They act so stupid that it's impossible for them to survive till that age in their own movie realm. I don't know how and why people give green light to such movies. It's one of those 'traps' with 'Bruce Willis' and 'John Malkovich' written with caps to lure innocent film freaks.

This film isn't a masterpiece at all, it's not terrible, but not good either. I enjoyed John Malkovich's two scenes which both included with his Ancient Greek history lessons, but didn't really see why he was even in the film whatsoever, his scenes were pretty pointless.

The actual story is a bit of a mess, but also somewhat simplistic, and the dialogue was pretty poor throughout, its like an amature wrote half of what the cast were saying.

Few too many plot contravenes throughout. The action, although comical at times, was actually good. Good action with a decent amount of gore, and a flying head near the end.

Sadly though,Bruce Willis is just a shell of his former self, how the mighty have fallen, and it's quite sad. You could tell he just filmed his scenes in about 60 minutes, and didn't really do a good job delivering his lines, just pretty much said them.

Went into this film with really low expectations but it turned out to be a silly yet slightly amusing action film. Wouldn't exactly go out of my way to watch it or recommend it to anyone, but I wasn't exactly bored for 90 minutes.