Fire with Fire - Vengeance par le feu

Josh D. is not built for a role like this. He might be good at the romantic stuff he does, but as a lead in an action packed movie like this, it feels like he's a fish out of water. Or a fireman without water. Both not ideal in any case. Rosario Dawson is good as always, but she doesn't have much to do. Even the charismatic Vincent D'Onofrio, who's the best of the bunch in here, has more presence than our lead actor. Not to mention a almost perfect phone call with our main guy.

The action scenes are very good. There will be blood so to speak. It doesn't skip on the violence. It does skip on the logic part ... but that's not the reason you chose to watch this movie. It's entertaining enough, if you generally watch a lot of movies. Do not rent this because of appearances by the Jacksons (Curtis (50 Cent) and/or Rampage). They're not really long enough in the movie. And their story line isn't really thought through either. Anyway ...

Okay, so 'revenge films' are nothing new. Ever since Charles 'Paul Kersey' Bronson lost his family to muggers, normally peaceful citizens have been taken to the streets in films to dish out a helping of vigilante justice. This is one of those films.

Here we have a firefighter who witnesses a gangland hit and has to go into the witness protection scheme. Trouble is, the people he's set to testify against find out where he's hiding, therefore forcing him to 'get them' before they get him.

And it plays out as you might imagine (assuming you've seen any of the other hundred or so revenge movies). You may notice I'm not going into great detail about the storyline. That's because there isn't really much to give away in terms of plot. It's just a revenge film. And it's not that bad. It's the sort of film you rent over buying and probably shouldn't pay too much attention to the minor plot holes here and there.

I didn't mind it and certainly didn't think I'd wasted an hour and a half watching it. However, the thing I was hoping for was to see the firefighter using his firefighting skills to flambé his tormenters. In fact... I thought that was the whole point of the film, i.e. he uses what he knows to start fires with which to exact his revenge. As it turns out he just buys a gun and shoots them.

Oh, and Bruce Willis is in it, too. But then it was never released in the cinema and Bruce seems to have a clause in his contract that states he must never appear in a film that's actually given a theatrical release.

Anyway, as I say, rent this before you buy. It's not bad (especially for a straight-to-DVD movie), but could have been a little better.

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Similar recent action flicks with decent actors that were worse:The River Murders(3/10), Set-up(3/10), Takers(4.5/10), and Elephant White(4/10).

Donofrio is actually really solid as the villain here.

The story is very straight forward, but the brutality of some of the violence is quite nice. They really earned the "R" rating here, and that's always a nice thing when it comes to films like this. After all, there's nothing worse than the clean PG-13 version of these types of films.

I thought some of the power struggles between the villain and the cops came off pretty well. We get the sense that the villain here is practically untouchable, and that aspect of the film has a realistic edge.

The films has it's issues though. The lead character is poorly developed and a budding romance is glossed over like a 2 minute cliff-note.

This is borderline 5-6 for me, but I'm sticking with 53/100! That doesn't round up to 6; 6 really would be generous.

I was blown away by how many big supporting faces were in this film. Somebody dished out quite a lot of money on this cast. Too bad the script squanders the cast with suspect writing and a mail-list of decent actors that have one line in the film.

I actually felt like I got my money's worth here, but I only spent .50 for the 3rd choice out of the redbox.

Considering the excellent cast - it's a bit of a disappointment. BUT, considering the straight-to-video action write-off nature of the release - it wasn't half-bad. It was only 44% bad:)

You might like this if you liked:Death Sentence(about even, I thought Death Sentence was severely over-rated, 5/10), Set-Up(much worse), Elephant White(worse), Law Abiding Citizen(about even)or The Last Lullaby(better).

Bruce Willis is featured prominently on the Box Cover and suckered me into watching it, as certainly was the intention of the producers. Sadly, Willis's part was completely uneventful. All I can figure is they must have paid him a nice salary and promised him he would be on and off the set in one day. They show him just enough that you think at any moment the film would take a dramatic turn and Bruce would jump into action. In the end, you could strip him completely out of the movie and it would have had absolutely no effect on the film. So therefore, this film will never be one that Willis will be noted for. If you are a Bruce Willis fan, as I am; skip this one.

Placing Bruce Willis, very minor role, in a film and not using him to add to the action and thrill effects of the story is crazy. The villain is better than the hero and the hero once he decides to seek revenge is poorly matched to come against men who live for violence. The basic idea is that a good hearted man will always win the day and be able to rescue who he loves the most. There is a lot blood in this movie, romantic scenes without the sex, and the skilled City detectives and Federal agents are portrayed as totally inept goof-ups. One angry man against a whole lot of prime criminals. This is a wonderful fantasy but is it possible for Hollywood to ever make a realistic crime thriller?