Falcon Rising

You will probably find "Falcon Rising" to be entertaining the more that you are in an undemanding mood when you sit down to watch it. I'm not saying that it is a bad movie, but there are several things holding it back from being a great B movie. The faults with the movie do not concern its star, Michael Jai White. Although his acting is only adequate, he does make up for it by his strong presence and animal magnetism, and when he thrown into an action scene, he acquits himself very well. The main problems with the movie generally fall with the script. The story (which is to a large degree very predictable) is kind of padded out, and takes forever to get going (over a third of the movie goes by before White's character really starts to get down to business.) Also, the movie gives White less of a chance to show off his martial art skills or gunplay than you might think. But when the action does come, it's pretty decent, not the best I've seen but also far from the worst. So the movie ends up being an okay effort, best saved for a casual viewing experience rather than when you are really craving a lot of gratuitous violent action.

With the exception of a few landscape shots, its clear the producers passed miles away from Rio. Why they don't use brazilian actors rather than using spanish speakers trying to emulate something that is anything but portuguese?

OK action movie but there is some confusion concerning the place of action. You can clearly see the typical views of Rio DE Janeiro and not a word about Sao Paolo. Maybe it is a small detail to most viewers - thou I doubt it, but right is right. It happens in Rio and not in Sao Paolo, OK? Otherwise an entertaining movie, recommended. After that we can go on to say few words about the movie itself. It seemed a little like Jason Statham plot - remember Jason's "Homefront?" The Brazilian police couple for ex. was a little too obvious to me, but not surprising at all. The action is quite interesting as it takes us beyond the Favela and gets us to take an additional quick look into the world of trafficking. All in all really good acting on most characters and nicely photographed too, Thomas K.

7.5/10

I agree with A_Different_Drummer's review for this movie and his Blood and Bone review. MJW is one of the best action stars out there and is still under-utilized. While this movie started off slowly, the second half was very entertaining and worth it. Predictable story but who cares, it's all about the style for this movie.

MJW needs more roles, I will watch anything with him in it. If you haven't seen Blood and Bone or Black Dynamite yet, go ahead and do yourself the favor.

Though this one isn't his strongest movie it beats the usual 6's and 7's on IMDb that are churned out by Popllywood.

Having seen "Blood and Bone" I was interested to see MJW's latest outing, and with some minor reservations this movie is worth a look if the genre interests you. Its well shot, reasonable well acted throughout, with a good peppering of action sequences culminating in the standard "final battle". The fight scenes are well done, focusing on MJW's obvious skills without special effects or camera trickery. The plot moves along nicely, true its a little formulaic and maybe predicable, but name an action/revenge movie that is not....its more about the journey than the destination....hands up who wasn't sure if Liam Neeson would find his daughter in "Taken". The thing that impresses me the most is how good it it is considering the budget...$4.5 million, compare that to "The Expendables" $262 million...and it doesn't look cheap...think more "Transporter" than "Bourne".... ...now there's a thought MJW v Jason Stratham..