Likvidator

The fight scenes are well choreographed and the cinematography is a lot better than some more well known offerings. Ignore the Vinnie Jones picture on the promotional material as its inaccurate depiction of him as the main star is neither here nor there and certainly doesn't detract from the movie. As an Englishman I am rather pleased that Vinnie Jones did not appear as billed. He is, in my opinion, not a great actor and if he had taken a more major role then the film would be all the worse for it. This is a good film that also gives an insight into a different culture and landscape and it has a story that can be followed easily enough, given the good subtitles and the genre clichés that are used to good effect. OK so there is nothing very original about The Liquidator but as an introduction to the Kazakhstan film industry it leaves me hoping more, ever improving, movies of international appeal will soon be forthcoming.

The only reason I rated it 2, was because of the few fight scenes. The movie is pointless and drags with wasted dialog just to fill screen time. They use false advertising with Vinnie Jones face on the box cover, but he had less impact and screen time as one of the off-screen key grips for the movie!

I had to write this article to warn people not to be mislead. I checked IMDb's rating breakdown and it has 38 users voting this movie as a 10. You know those users are paid individuals or associated with the movie. So do not always believe the super ratings on IMDb. To verify the user's credibility, always check how many movies they have rated and if their ratings are always 7 or above, talking about how great some of these non-blockbuster movies are.

THE LIQUIDATOR is the first movie I've seen from Kazakhstan and, truth be told, I won't be rushing to view any more in future. It's a cheap rip-off of THE RAID, made with a local cast who give performances which aren't too bad, so it's a shame that the script is so unrelentingly unimaginative and the plot twists so well choreographed. As a massive fan of THE RAID films and others which feel just like them, I can report that this never comes close, instead feeling like a typical enthusiastic but undistinguished indie. The UK DVD is a cheat, making it look like Vinnie Jones is the protagonist when in fact he has a five-minute-long hitman cameo.

This is a film starring Vinnie Jones and he does not have one line. He only appears in the movie for about 10 minutes in total and does not play an interesting character.

Very bad cinematography.

Camera constantly changing angle, shaking,cutting between camera angles, zooming in and out randomly.

This and a poor storyline which was difficult to follow made this not worth watching, at all.

I usually like to add something positive about a film but nothing in this film was worth praising.

Avoid

I expected a real turd by reading other comments here and i decided to check the movie by myself and it wasn't as bad as expect, this is not really an "action" movie, it's a thriller with some brief action scenes (mostly fights and gunfights) thrown in, the plot was good enough to not bore and the film had some good twists.

Unfortunately, the editing for the action scenes is mediocre (a bit like the Bourne series), but at least, there is no shaky cam.

Everybody here seems to be disappointed by the fact that Vinnie Jones isn't the main character (despite being top billed in the cover, he has less than 15 minutes of screen time and he has no lines), but the other actors did a good job.

Now i'm looking forward to see other action movies from Kazakhstan, i'm pretty sure that they have a lot to offer.