Um, I don't know what to say to open a review like this so let's just get straight to the point, this is another re-hashed movie of Die Hard in which the script relies heavily on the action and style, that even if the movie is one-dimensional, it does not become as over-the-top as you'd want to be to root for the character. It is also not as contained because they do not allow the main character to develop with much background.
Shaun Russell, what a name, (Gabrielle Union), goes to her estranged father's old house with her kids, Jasmine (Ajiona Alexus) and Glover (Seth Carr) in order to settle the estate and sell the house. There are security cameras installed around the house that Glover notices which lead to the case that Shaun's father has had a working history with some people. Later on, four criminals break into the house led by Eddie (Billy Burke). The other thieves are Peter (Mark Furze), Sam (Levi Meaden) and Duncan (Richard Cabral). They all take Jasmine and Glover hostage and Shaun will not leave the house or property without her children and even with them just escaping with the money.
This is a curious movie that holds not much stake and not much backstory that leads me to analytical questions as to how was the story formed, the relationship between Shaun and her father, the children being hostages and why there is $4 million in a safe in the house. I do not even know who Shaun is. What kind of a mother is she? Does she have a job? I'm guessing that her maternal instincts got to Shaun because she has no special ops or Army training taking on the villains in the movie. Now, that would have been a wacky rip-off of a Die Hard movie and it would have been fun.
Gabrielle Union does give a good performance, however, I did not think that she was capable of having the presence of a bad-ass mother saving her children from the villains. Now, this is funny because she and Billy Burke are in two separate movies here. Union feels like she is an audition for this movie whereas Burke felt like he was in another movie that may have stake but his character is not up to it. This movie is like you have an untrained John McClane character mixed with a bored Hans Gruber character with an incompetent gang of thieves from either Die Hard or Panic Room, a much better movie about a mother protecting her child from harm from a gang of thieves. Also, it is cheap to have the pawns become children because there is no suspense in which a child is in danger because you and the audience will know the outcome. In this scenario, it is about the journey and not its destination, which fails at both.
Director James McTeigue, who made V for Vendetta, has wasted his talents here and does not let the movie not become as loose as it wanted to be. It is a dull, painfully slow, clunky 88-minute thriller that makes you yawn at the thrills and "exciting" action than being immersed in that claustrophobic scenario. Also, I noticed that this PG-13 movie is censored and I noticed it from the dubbing because I am venturing a guess that the real script had some tough, profane dialogue but editors, the production crew and the executives want to get the mothers and the daughters in the theater. Yeah, there are very few positives in this but there is so much incompetence in the script and its character development that even bored people will notice that it mirrors the characters. It is like behind-the-scenes footage from the days of making this movie.
*1/2
Comments
Post a Comment