Vigilante Chronicles

I look at the blurb before the cast and writer and director but it didn't take more than a few minutes into this movie to suspect it's a writer/director effort! He really should have stuck to cooking! It comes with a second writer who also stars but that's no great shakes of a recommendation.

It's not a dire action movie, but it does come with the usual action flick clichés, improbabilities (impossibilities!), set pieces, contrivances and, yes, stupidities (when you've got the guy where you want him, yeah, put the gun away and go hand-to-hand! Doh! Moron! (er, that's the writer(s)!)! The bad guys speak English for most of the movie but 2/3rds of the way through they start speaking in their native language and we're treated to subtitles. Oh dear...

Oh yes, the hip hop/rap music is crap, too!

But the movie mainly falls down in the explanation department. It could be me, but trying to follow who's who and who's done what to whom and why, got off to a bad start and didn't really get any easier. However, if you just go with the flow you can enjoy an action flick (with just a twinge of gratuitous torture) for what it is.

The performances are nothing to write home about but Michael Madsen does well (although he doesn't actually do much) but must have been looking for work.

It's all sort of OK, but not brilliant and there's the ever-present feeling that it should and could have been better.

If you've nothing else to do on a weekday night, give it a whirl, but have a few beers with it, accept it for what it is and wonder why you're watching this when you could be watching a 7* movie.

Acting? Bad. Writing? Bad. Directing? Bad.

This movie is so cheesy Michael Madsen and Eric Roberts were fighting over who would get a role.

You know when a movie is so bad, it's good? That's not this film.

I watched the whole thing—like rubbernecking a car accident—I knew I shouldn't, but I just couldn't look away.

The script was terrible, most of the acting was terrible, the storyline was weak and disorganized, characters weren't believable or even likable, and it was just stuffed full of terrible clichés. I honestly just didn't care about what happened to anybody in the film. I mean there was a baby where I thought, "Please don't use this kid as another gratuitous and clichéd plot device," but even then, it was more of not wanting to see that on the film, and not because there was any emotional investment beyond not wanting to see the depiction of atrocities committed to infants) No spoilers here, so I won't say whether or not I got my one wish.

A little bit of production talent could have cleaned the script up and tightened up the storyline; some technical consulting in the action sequences to actually lend credibility to the idea that these guys are 'operators' who understand even basic weapons-handling, combat strategies, (and even how to use their weapons' sights for f**k's sake), could have taken this weird train wreck and upgraded it into at least a guilty pleasure.

I went into this not expecting a masterpiece. I assumed it would be a 'guilty pleasure' shoot-em up and, as such, I tried really hard to like the film.

Unfortunately, the whole thing just falls disappointingly flat.

Most actors feel like they are from cheap TV-shows. The bad guy must be telenovela actor. The script feels like it was written with mad- lips using action movie clichés. Movie is a messy mix-up of elements stolen form well-known action movie. Mostly from Deadpool, like lead actor narrating the story and fourth-wall breaks. Plot of all over the place and bad director makes this movie too both way too stupid for adults to watch sober and too hard to follow stoned or drunk. So I guess the target audience are male tween.

None of the characters are neither believable, interesting or funny.

Movie is not funny enough to be bad-funny movie. While this is not totally bad movie, it's not any way good either. Current rating of 5 is too high, this does not deserve rating above low 4.

You can't really "watch" this movie without at same time surfing on the internet looking for something interesting to pass the time.

This is a hard to rate movie.

The actors, I liked a lot of them - and not just the Asian hotties, I'll have you know. I mean the main character is a muscleman with no charisma whatsoever, but there you got Michael Jai White, Jason "Jay" Mewes, Michael "sooo annoying" Madsen, even Danny Trejo and James Russo do some cameos. Add to this serious dudes like Quinton 'Rampage' Jackson and the entire Armenian cast, who did very well, and you got some cool people there with both acting and/or physical action handled.

The story is all over the place, from a vigilante that is called The Vigilante, but doesn't seem to do anything during the movie, to the Armenian mob, terrorist nuke attacks, data hackers with weird 3D air interfaces, getting the captured wife and son back, shadow men that manipulate everything, etc. The problem is the script. It just ... sucks! Nothing is connected, no characters are developed, things go from one place to another with absolutely no emotional impact. It made the whole thing confusing and boring.

Then there is the production values. Expensive cars, weapons, some decent CGI... but the action stinks! The action scenes feel like little kids made them: no tactics, no strategy, people walking in a line without cover, ridiculous fight scenes. You feel it even stronger when Michael Jai White starts moving and you realize how pathetic everything was before that. Jax rules!

Anyway, it was a decent effort, with enough resources to make at least a good film, and with a lot more possible. Unfortunately, it isn't a decent movie: it's barely a 6.