TITLE & REVIEW
Brian Mills (Liam Neeson -
SW: Phantom Menace
) is an ex-CIA goon who now earns a living as bodyguard to the likes of
Holly Valance
. His ex-wife (
Famke Janssen
) has married rich industrialist Xander Berkley (
Barb Wire
). His daughter (
Maggie Grace
) and her friend (
Katie Cassiday
) have decided to take a trip to France.
The young women - in their late twenties but acting ten years younger - are abducted by some swarthy men. These kidnappers do not want a ransom. They are almost perfectly designed as a combination of groups that American audiences would find the most easy to hate. Right-wingers hate them for being Albanian muslims, while left-wingers hate them for being sex-traffickers.
The mild-mannered Brian Mills turns out to be as brutal as Jack Bauer in 24. He tears Paris apart, torturing and murdering anyone who gets in his way. There is not much technology used, because this genre of film relies on tropes from the 1970s.
This film made Neeson, a renowned dramatic actor, into an action movie star. Ironically he was in his mid-50s at the time, an age when most action stars have retired or joined The Expendables .
In the first movie, Brian (Liam Neeson -
Star Wars: TPM
) murdered a bunch of Albanian.
Four years after the events of the original movie,
the families of the Albanian gang have not forgotten what happened to their relatives.
Now their brothers and cousins want revenge.
Of all the places to go for work, Brian accepts an assignment in Istanbul, Turkey. Since it is an Islamic country close to Albania, he has put himself at severe risk of reprisals. By incredible coincidence, the ex-wife ( Famke Janssen ) is now having marital problems with her new husband. Brian tells her to bring their daughter ( Maggie Grace ) to join him for a short stay after he has finished the contract as a bodyguard. After all, actions never have consequences.
The Albanian gang, led by the father of the first movie's villain (Rade Serbedzija - The Saint ), abducts Brian and his ex-wife. Brian gets the daughter to locate him by throwing hand-grenades into parking lots. This works because the sound wave travels at one kilometre per second, so he can roughly triangulate his position. Luckily the police do not actually take an interest in this kind of thing. Yes, this movie is not as well thought-out as it pretends to be.
The action scenes include a foot-chase along the rooftops. This is a bit of a let-down because it was actually done better the year before in The International. There are lots of fight scenes and shoot-outs, but nothing that was not done better in the original. The Albanians are just anonymous goons who exist merely to be slaughtered. The fact that this attitude to peoples lives in the first movie is what got the revenge plot started is only given lip-service at the end.
This time the revenge thriller series is set in Los Angeles.
How can the same stuff happen to the same guy three times?
Well, he is a Secret Agent for hire, so it is how he earns his living, right?
Well, no, it is his ex-wife (
Famke Janssen
) and her marriage to that gets him in trouble!
Please note, this is not her third marriage.
The rich industrialist formerly played by Xander Berkley (
Barb Wire
) has been re-cast with a younger actor (Dougray Scott -
Mission Impossible 2
).
Brian Mills (Liam Neeson - SW: Phantom Menace ) gets framed for murder, even though he has an easily-verified alibi and there is no physical evidence against him beyond the circumstantial. Does he tell the detective (Forest Whittaker - Species )? Does he get a lawyer? No, he goes on the run and tries to solve the case himself!
Brian’s multiple escapes from the police include a car chase on a freeway, which creates several pile-ups. This is all dumbed down to look cartoonish. Nobody is shown to get hurt, while in reality there would have been several civilian fatalities. And worst of all, his superpowers now seem to include teleportation because he can move instantaneously from the site of a potential explosion to a safe distance away.
Instead of his wife or daughter getting taken, this time they BOTH get taken. And instead of some Albanian pimps, the villains are a Russian mafia gang composed of ex-Speznaz. Luckily the industrialist is around to explain what Speznaz is, in case Brian and his CIA buddy Leland Orser ( Alien: Resurrection ) do not know.
When a scientist (Liam Neeson -
Taken
) gets involved in a car crash,
he wakes up to discover that he has been replaced by a duplicate (Aidan Quinn -
). Even his own wife (
January Jones
) does not recognise him.
The only person who will help the protagonist is a cab-driver ( Diane Kruger ). In fact, she is more of an action-hero character than he is. This movie comes across as a buddy-buddy action movie, without the wisecracks of course, since Kruger is a fighter instead of a love interest. This is just as well, since Neeson discovers a couple of murderous hitmen are after him.
An old friend (Frank Langella - Dracula (1979) ) flies into town in order to help. What could possibly go wrong?
This is set in Germany, made by a European conglomerate, and has the feel of a Luc Besson movie. The director, presumably Besson's protege, has worked with Neeson on several thriller movies. A pity they did not give this more of a Total Recall vibe, and make the Neeson character more competent. Instead he is practically a Cary Grant character on one of Hitchcock's comedic romps.
The movie starts in 1991.
Matt Scutter (Liam Neeson -
SW: Phantom Menace
) is a hard-drinking cop in New York City.
This sets the tone for the whole film,
a grim and down-beat revenge thriller
that seems to have wandered out of the 1970s.
The main story takes place in 1999. Yes, this is a period piece set ten years before it was filmed - like Shampoo (1976). The villains use pay-phones and audio cassettes. Sutter uses a microphiche reader in the library, and has to be taught how to use the internet. The search engine of choice is Yahoo, and the Y2K bug is just around the corner. In other words, the changes that took place in the time it took from the script being written until the film was released are very noticeable.
Sutter, now an unlicensed Private Eye, is hired by Kenny (Dan Gordon - Legion ) - another American played by a British actor. Kenny's wife was kidnapped and murdered. Sutter reluctantly accepts the job - not for the money, but because of his deep-seated belief in justice.
This is a grim police procedural, although not as grim as the usual Rape and Revenge fare that is quite common in the Horror genre. This slow-moving suspense aspect seems to go hand-in-hand with the relatively low level of technology involved, because faster technology enables a faster pace in story-telling.
Ottway (Liam Neeson -
Star Wars: Phantom Menace
) is a hunter who works at a remote oil industry facility in the north of Alaska.
His job is to protect the workers from roaming wolfpacks.
However, the biggest threat to the workers is the employers' indifference.
Instead of recruiting college graduates and making the facility an alcohol-free zone,
the corporation recruits expendable ex-convicts and allows them to get drunk every night.
The corporation also skimps out on basic safety,
so when the workers' shift is over they fly home on a jet that has seen better days.
Much like the oil facility,
the jet's maintenance has been cut to a bare minimum.
The plane inevitably crashes, and that is not the worst of it. The survivors find themselves in a blizzard. Even worse, the area they crashed in is home to a particularly vicious wolfpack. The survivors try to hike out of the area, but they make mistakes that every Duke of Edinburgh Award kids would avoid. There are seven survivors, but the wolves quickly take that down to five.
Ottway has other problems. Diaz (Frank Grillo - Captain America: Silver War ) is jealous of the power he has over the group, and challenges him for dominance. Yes, this story features a variety of characters with different personalities.
Joe Carnahan made his name with post-Tarantinoesque stuff like Smoking Aces which rely on style rather than substance. With The Grey, he has created a story which has both suspense and pathos. We care about the characters as they get picked off one by one.
So why is this film not better known? On its initial release, the trailer put undue focus on one scene in which Ottway outlines a proactive strategy for dealing with the wolves. The result was that the audience expected this to be Taken with wolves instead of Albanians. In reality, this is a survival story that has a reactive protagonist. The survivors basically get picked off one at a time. The audience found this disappointing, and thus the mis-advertised film became despised.
Cliched cop (alcoholic Irishman) Liam Neeson (
SW: Phantom Menace
) is an Air Marshall aboard a transatlantic flight from the USA to the UK.
Along with fellow Air Marshall Anson Mount (
All The Boys Love Mandy Lane
), air stewardess
Michelle Dockery
and nervous passenger
Julianne Moore
he must defeat a murderous plan.
This is a 21st-Century action thriller - okay, more of a Whodunit than a shoot-em-up. It is PG-13, so there is no swearing. Except on a text-phone, where the offending word is conveniently concealed under a vertical crack in the phone's screen.
Liam Neeson (
SW: Phantom Menace
) is a burnt-out hitman working for gangland boss Ed Harris (
Apollo 13
). Unfortunately their sons are not chips off the old block.
The result is
Road to Perdition
only with Common (Hell on Wheels) instead of Jude Law (
A.I.
).
This is a very 1970s thriller, like many of the current crop of action movies. With the exception of the TV show 24, none of them seem to have increased their pacing to take into account the speed of modern communications. The cellular phone, used almost as a gimmick in The X-Files ), is now standard across the English-speaking world and yet barely acknowledged in thriller movies.
A man is on a commuter train,
when he is contacted by a woman who gives him a mission.
He must identify a suspect
who is posing as one of the other passengers.
Sound familiar?
Well, this is pretty much the same plot as
Source Code (2011)
- even down to the casting of
Vera Farmiga
as the controller.
The protagonist is an ex-cop (Liam Neeson - Star Wars: TPM ), down on his luck and in need of the cash. Neeson has done a few of those type of character lately - presumably it is the best kind of role available for a middle-aged action star.
While the original was a sci-fi time-travel story, this is a more mundane crime thriller. The controller is a villain, while the target is a witness under police protection.
McAuley (Neeson) tries to back out of the deal, but Jules Skateboarder ( Letitia Wright ) lets him know that the villains have his wife ( Elizabeth McGovern ). McAuley can rule out regular commuters like Walt (Jonathan Banks - ), so he concentrates on strangers like the nose-ring girl ( Florence Pugh ) and the black girl ( Ella Rae-Smith ). Conductor Jimmy (Adam Nagaitis - Gunpowder Milkshake ) gets suspicious of McAuley's activities ...
McAuley talks on the phone with his ex-partner Detective Murphy (Patrick Wilson - Watchmen ). Is his ex-boss (Sam Neill - Jurassic Park ) somehow involved?
The protagonist, Nels Coxman (Liam Neeson -
Star Wars: TPM
), is a snow-plough driver in a town near Denver, Colorado.
Well, the story is set in Colorado
but the vast number of Canada-based performers (such as
Elysia Rotaru
in a bit-part as a waitress)
indicate it was filmed in the great snowy north.
When the driver's twenty-something son is killed by a drug dealer named Speedo (Michael Eklund - The Divide ), the father goes on a murderous revenge spree. Everyone involved, from the lowest dealer to the man in charge, is targeted for murder by the bloodthirsty killer. Town police-woman Kim Dash ( Emmy Rossum ) is confused, and her boss John Gipiky (John Doman - ) would rather just decriminalise drugs to get rid of the violence.
Part of the problem with this movie is the fact its tone is incredibly uneven. It starts as an incredibly downbeat film, because the protagonist's son is dead and his wife Grace ( Laura Dern ) cannot handle it. Our hero contemplates suicide, like in The Grey . Later, the movie is overrun by quirky post- Tarantino gangsters with cool-sounding nick-names like in Smoking Aces . This reviewer had to check the credits to make sure this was not written or directed by Joe Carnahan , because he was responsible for both those films. Instead it was by a European director, adapted from his original. Perhaps that should explain the awkward tone shift.
The protagonist, Tom Dolan (Liam Neeson -
Star Wars: TPM
), is an ex-military explosives expert
who became an expert safe-cracker and thief.
Although he is referred to as a robber,
technically what he did was theft by burglary
instead of theft by robbery.
After stealing nine million dollars in cash from a dozen banks over eight years, Dolan needs a place to stash his loot. He hires a storage unit at a facility run by Annie Wilkins ( Kate Walsh ), and spends the next year dating her. When he commits to a serious relationship with her, he decides to turn himself and his cash in to get a lighter sentence.
FBI Agent Baker (Robert Patrick - Terminator 2 ) and his partner, Sean Meyers (Jeffrey Donovan - ), are busy with other things. They delegate the follow-up to Agent Nivens (Jai Courtney - Divergent ) and his partner, who get greedy and decide to keep the nine million cash for themselves. Of course, to do this they have to kill the witnesses - Tom and Annie.
This is a pretty lightweight thriller, a cat-and-mouse game with a small number of players and locations. There are a few fight scenes, chases and so on, but it is not a mind-blowing action film. The only thing it has to set it apart is the cast, a handful of familiar faces who deliver decent performances.
An AOC-type politician makes a speach in Washington DC
about how equal pay and single-payer healthcare are good things.
This is enough to get her assassinated
by a team skilled enough to make it look like an accident.
Our hero, Travis Block (Liam Neeson - Star Wars: TPM ), specialises in extracting undercover agents whose covers have been blown - like Schwartzenegger in Eraser (1996) . His boss, FBI Director Gabriel Robinson (Aidan Quinn - ), is a reactionary asshole - so it is small wonder that a tweenage agent named Dusty snaps and decides to expose their operations to the press.
A regular conspiracy thriller would have the audience in the dark, and they should slowly work out the conspiracy's details as the protagonist himself uncovers them. In contrast, the villains and their plan are pretty much laid out from the beginning. In other words, this is more of a straight-up action movie.
To give the protagonist more depth, he has a daughter and grandaughter. Not only do they allow him to show a more sensitive side, but as the plot speeds up they can become damsels in distress.
There is also a subplot concerning a journalist who starts to investigate the conspiracy. Since the audience already know everything, there is no actual suspense. Also, because she is an African-American and there is a massive age gap there is no way she can be Neeson's love interest. In other words, her whole subplot is just tacked on and pointless.
Our hero, Philip Marlowe (Liam Neeson -
Star Wars: TPM
), is a private detective in 1930s Hollywood.
A femme fatale, Mrs Cavendish (
Diane Kruger
), hires him to find her missing lover Nico Peterson (
).
Nico is officially listed as dead, accidentally hit by a car while leaving a drinking club. The manager, Mr Hansen (Danny Huston - American Horror Story ), and the missing man's half-sister Lynne ( Diana Melchior ), who works in the club, are both witnesses ... or suspects.
Nico's job in the props department of a Hollywood studio means that the movie industry might be involved. Dorothy Quincannon ( Jessica Lange ), a former actress, is also the mother of Mrs Cavendish. Yes, the movie has a lot of familiar faces in it despite its made-for-TV budget.
The plot thickens with the involvement of a gangster named Lou Hendricks (Alan Cumming - Goldeneye ) and his driver Cedric (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje - Lost ). Luckily, Marlowe has connections of his own. As a former cop, his partner Joe (Ian Hart - ) and boss Bernie (Colm Meaney - Star Trek: DS9 ) are willing to give him some leeway.
This version of Marlowe has been adapted to suit Neeson. He served with the Royal Irish Rifles at the Somme in 1916, a way of writing his unmistakeable accent into the movie. There is a somewhat judgemental post-MeToo approach to men who are exploited by sexually manipulative women. Finally the conclusion leaves the power in the hands of diverse persons as opposed to the real-life CIS-het white men because Marlowe, despite his supposed Sir Lancelot image, decides to let a couple of murderers get away with it.
These inconsistencies seem to have been made so Neil Jordan , the famous Irish film auteur, could deliver a made-for-TV adaptation of a novel. Not an original by Raymond Chandler, but a more recent franchise fiction effort. As a result, it has a more modern and politically correct feel. This is nowhere near as good as L.A. Confidential or any other modern noir effort.
Matt Turner (Liam Neeson -
Star Wars: TPM
) is a hedge fund manager in Berlin.
One morning he is driving his teenage kids to school
when he gets a call from a mad bomber.
There is a bomb under his car seat,
with a pressure switch to set it off if he tries to get out.
Not unlike Tom Hardy in Locke, Turner is stuck in the driving seat the whole time and has to deal with his problems over the phone. In a twist, it turns out that the only reason Matt is looking after the kids is because his wife Heather ( Embeth Davidtz ) is off secretly visiting a divorce attorney. Yes, his reward for trying to be a good father is that he is helping his wife take them away from him. Well, no good deed goes unpunished.
The mad bomber may be a disgruntled client out for revenge. After all, Matt is a salesman - his job is to sell investment opportunities to people, so cynical people see him as a professional liar. However, the firm's senior partner Anders Muller (Matthew Modine - ) has access to hundreds of millions of Euros from the investors. The bomber wants access to the money.
The storyline is basic enough, similar to movies like Speed . The difference is that this is shot on a much lower budget, with fewer locations and explosions. There is an extended car chase through Berlin - presumably the reason they chose that city is because it gave the Producers the best financial deal. All in all, a decent made-for-TV thriller.
In a dystopian future, the biggest form of entertainment
is televised death-match car races held in America's super-max prison.
Champion convict Frankenstein (David Carradine, in an homage to the the original movie
Death Race 2000
) is indisposed, so Prison Governoress
Joan Allen
must secretly introduce a replacement.
By apparent coincidence, Jason Statham (
The Expendables
) is framed for murder and ends up in her prison.
Murderous mayhem ensues. This is an incredible series of car chases and explosions. Luckily, the hero's team includes Danny Trejo ( From Dusk Til Dawn ) and Ian McShane ( Golden Compass ).
This is a prequel to the
Death Race (2008)
remake. Luke Goss (
Blade 2
) is a professional getaway driver for a gang of armed robbers.
He is best buddies with gangster Sean Bean (
Game of Thrones
), who gives him a high powered car as a gift.
Unfortunately this car is bright orange,
and it is a hatchback so the driver has to get out and pull the front seat down
so the passengers can climb into the back seats.
Naturally our hero ends up in prison.
Lauren Cohan is a television reporter working for Billionaire Mr Weyland (Ving Rhames - Surrogates ). Weyland has a huge portfolio, including a TV network and the US Prison system. He may even be related to one of the founders of the Mega-Corp from the Alien series. Anyway, Cohan invents the idea of maximizing TV ratings by turning prison riots into a live, televised spectator sport. This is developed into the Death Race, and when Goss ends up in prison he quickly becomes the top competitor.
Billionaire Mr Weyland (Ving Rhames -
Surrogates
) is victim of a hostile takeover by Dougray Scott (
Mission: Impossible 2
). The new owner relocates Frankenstein (Luke Goss -
Blade 2
) and his pit crew to South Africa!
This is set in the near future, after the US economy has melted down.
Unemployment hit twenty-one percent,
which means the illegal immigrants must have gone home.
Unfortunately violent crime went through the roof,
which means that the government ignored Keynesian economics
and failed to hire additional police officers.
Instead they take their policies from the movie
Escape From New York
, and created a prison out of an abandoned city.
A hundred square miles is a square of ten miles by ten miles,
so it is actually quite a small area when all is said and done
- especially when compared to international boundaries.
They built the wall in the rustbelt,
and put all the Trump supporters inside.
As it is a private prison, Weyland Corp gets the contract.
Weyland Corp may have the contract to run the prison, but they no longer run the Death Race. It was resurrected by a couple of survivors from the original team. The nerdy guy is the inside man, streaming the race live on the dark web, while Danny Trejo ( From Dusk Til Dawn ) handles the book-making on the outside. Their new boss is Baltimore Bob (Danny Glover - Age Of Dragons ).
Weyland's prison governor sends his SWAT team in to get Frankenstein. Unfortunately they walk right into an ambush. Frankenstein has upped the ante for control of the prison, so he ought to expect further retaliation.
The very next day there is an influx of new prisoners. One is an oriental woman with martial arts skills. Another is Zach Magowan ( Black Sails ), a mystery man who is an indestructible killing machine.
The newcomers sign up for the next session of Death race. There are various different tests, including motorbike racing and melee combat. These are to the death, which may seem extreme but the prison has a limited food supply so they need to keep the population down.
The race is more perilous than usual. Our hero has to take a short-cut to catch up, but this means jumping a 200-foot canyon. His car can theoretically go up to 220MPH, but he never thinks to lighten the load by dumping the tombstone.
A bunch of elite Special Forces types go for revenge against a rogue CIA goon.
There have been two other films this year with exactly the same plot,
and there is at least one other on the way!
This one stars and is directed by Sylvester Stallone (
Demolition Man
).
Stallone leads a rag-tag mix of mercenaries, from fellow 1980s star Dolph Lundgren ( Universal Soldier ) to more recent action heroes Jason Statham ( Ghosts of Mars ), Jet Li ( The One ) and token black guy Terry Crews. When not hanging out in the tattoo parlour of Mickey Rourke ( Iron Man 2 ) they kill Somali fishermen on behalf of a MegaCorp.
CIA goon Bruce Willis ( Surrogates ) hires the Mercs to assassinate a Latin American dictator (the Cuban cop in Dexter). The real target is the dictator's backer, drug baron Eric Roberts ( Dr Who TV Movie ). In order to defeat the villains and save the predictable damsel in distress, the unstoppable crew must kill every man in the town between the ages of 15 and 50. No problems there.
Among other things, this completely fails the Bechdel test. The only other proper female character is Charisma Carpenter , who is Statham's love interest long enough to give him an excuse to beat up a wife-beater.
Basically, the film staggers from one unbelievably OTT action scene to the next one. There is no suspense, we know EXACTLY what is going to happen at every step. That said, nobody really cares. If you liked the most recent Rambo film, you will love this!
To say that this is a cliched action-fest is an understatement.
It lacks the relative complexities of the first film, and that is saying something.
The team is sent on a mission, which turns them against bloodthirsty villain Jean-Claude Van Damme (
Universal Soldier
). This is not really about a plot device, it is a revenge mission for the guys.
The roster gets a shake-up this time. Stallone and Statham are still in charge, supported by Lungren, Couture and Crews. Jet Li and Liam Hemsworth ( Triangle (2009) ) both get a look-in, while the team also gets a token girl. Strangely, she is the only one who is a newcomer - an irony that while the men are all aged over fifty (except Hemsworth), the girl is in her twenties.
One thing that is remarkable is the lack of swearing. Apparently the film was meant to be a PG-12, so it was dumbed down for family audiences. The word is that thanks to a backlash by fans, Stallone was forced to put in extra scenes of ultra-violence. However, despite the on-screen decapitations the dialogue is still child-friendly so Yanks can take their kiddies to see it.
The movie starts with a massive action sequence,
where the team use a helicopter to attack an armoured train and free Wesley Snipes (
Blade
) from imprisonment for tax evasion.
Then they go on a CIA mission to snatch an arms dealer.
It turns out that the CIA’s info was incomplete,
and the team end up in a shootout with another 1980s bad-ass – Mel Gibson (
Braveheart
). As an inciting incident, someone gets hospitalised.
Is it one of the Token Black Guys? What do you think?
Stallone retires his old team, even though they did great work in the previous two movies. The second act of the film is Stallone recruiting a new team (with help from Kelsey Grammer – Transformers 4 ). This includes relative newcomer Kellan Lutz ( Legend of Hercules ) and the first woman Expendable – Ronda Rousey (a slightly younger version of Gina Carano ). They are more hi-tech than the old mob, using 21st Century hacking techniques to bring this up-to-date with modern techno-thrillers. Of course, it all goes wrong so there is a cliffhanger at the end of the Second Act.
Finally, the climactic third act features Stallone pulling his old buddies out of retirement. This is just as well for Statham, because Charisma Carpenter is nowhere in sight this time. The CIA get directly involved again, with Bruce Willis’ replacement (a foul-mouthed Harrison Ford – Ender’s Game ) arriving with more goons – Arnie Schwartzenegger and Jet Li!
Ray Breslin (Sylvester Stallone -
Demolition Man
) is an escape expert, who has broken out of fourteen Supermax facilities in the previous eight years.
His backup team includes Curtis Jackson (AKA 50 Cent) and Vincent D'Onfrio (
Men in Black
). Then he gets roped into a job to test the ultimate prison.
Of course, things go wrong and he ends up trapped.
The place is run by Jim Caviezel ( Passion of the Christ ), a vicious SOB who has used Stallone's textbook to construct an apparently escape-proof prison. The head guard is Vinny Jones ( Swordfish ), while the Medical officer is Sam Neill ( Omen III ). Yes, Christ and Damien Thorne are on the same side for once!
Luckily, while on the inside, Stallone is befriended by his co-star from The Expendables series, Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Ray Breslin (Sylvester Stallone -
Demolition Man
) has expanded his business,
and subcontracted the field work to a Chinese man.
Luckily this will allow the movie franchise
better access to the market in Red China.
The Chinese minion does some work on the side as bodyguard for his tech-billionaire cousin. Unfortunately a Geneva-based multinational company wants the secrets of the cousin's patented tecnhologies. The cousin and the minion are kidnapped, and end up in a super-secret prison codenamed Hades.
The villains's motivation seems confused. They were hired to get the cousin to reveal his secrets. However, it seems they also have a grudge against Breslin because he humiliated them when he broke out of their first super-prison in the first movie.
Breslin's team, including Angela ( Jaime King ), Curtis Jackson (AKA 50 Cent) and Dave Bautista ( Guardians Of The Galaxy ), must plan and execute a rescue.
Ray Breslin (Sylvester Stallone -
Demolition Man
) is settling down with his much-younger girlfriend Angela (
Jaime King
). Unfortunately business calls.
A Chinese businesswoman (
Malese Jow
) and her entourage are abducted.
Breslin's team, including Curtis Jackson (AKA 50 Cent) and Dave Bautista (
Guardians Of The Galaxy
), must plan and execute a rescue.
What is Breslin's motivation for getting involved? Well, his former partner Clark (Vincent D'Onfrio - Men in Black ) was in business with the kidnapped woman's father, so it would make sense for the father to hire Breslin's team. No need, since the villain is Clark's son (Devon Sawa - Final Destination ) and he wants revenge on Breslin. He even abducts one of the good guys, so the story becomes even more of a damsel-in-distress cliche.
The hostages are taken to a prison in the former Soviet Union. Oh, behind the bad old Iron Curtain? No, this is in Latvia - one of the Baltic Republics, a member of the European Union and the NATO alliance. Since the prison is in use as an illegal Black Site, the unstated truth must be that the CIA is somehow involved.
The original was tense thriller that relied on the hero's ability to outsmart the villains. This effort is a grim and gritty revenge movie. The heavy emphasis on a Chinese cast implies it is a cynical attempt to market the franchise to China.
A young car-racer named Brian (Paul Walker -
Pleasantville
) flirts with
Jordana Brewster
. His real agenda is to impress her brother, ace mechanic Dominic Turetto (Vin Diesel -
XXX
). Dom and his girlfriend Letty (
Michelle Rodriguez
) run a crew of illegal street-racers, including Johnny Strong (
XXX
).
Our hero is actually an undercover FBI Agent. He pretends to be a member of a popular semi-legal extreme sports sub-culture in order to track down an infiltrate a group of highly successful robbers. If this sounds familiar, that is because it was the plot for Point Break.
The original story had a subplot involving a rival gang. Instead of Surf Nazis, this time the bad guys are Chinese Tong bikers led by Rick Yune ( Die Another Day ) and his henchman (Reggie Lee - Grimm ).
It is amazing to think what this movie has spawned. Perhaps it is the mix of a top-notch cast and some well-shot car-chase scenes that puts this above the average action film. Basically it is a Point Break remake that created a franchise the equivalent of a big-budget Sharknado series. The only thing that slowed it was Vin Diesel's refusal to do sequels, which resulted in his absence from the second two films in this series - just as he skipped out on XXX 2 .
This takes place a couple of years after the original film.
Brian (Paul Walker -
Pleasantville
) has dumped Mia (
Jordana Brewster
) and left the FBI.
He is now in Florida, where he works with a street-race promoter (Ludacris -
Fred Claus
) and races against the likes of
Devon Aoki
, Michael Ealy (
Almost Human
) and Amaury Nolasco (
Max Payne
).
Brian gets busted by local cop James Remar ( Django Unchained ). With the intervention of his old boss (Thom Barry - Texas Chainsaw 3-D ), they recruit him to go undercover again. He agrees, but insists that his partner is his old buddy Rome (Tyrese Gibson - Legion (2010) ).
The cops already have an inside woman - Eva Mendes . Naturally, she becomes David's love interest. However, they do not know if they can trust her. Her boss (Cole Hauser - Olympus Has Fallen (2013) ) is the main target, a narcotics importer who wants the drivers to move his cash for him. He is a sadistic narcissist, but she has ingratiated herself with him well enough. Basically she fills the role of a traditional femme fatale, although this lacks the trappings of a film noir. Will she be a villainess or a damsel in distress?
This is in many ways a basic rehash of the original film. Since this was made at a time when Vin Diesel refused to do sequels, which also explains his absense from XXX 2: State of the Union , so Gibson's character was created as a stand-in for Dom Turetto. At least this part of Brian's back-story works, because it explains why he was so happy to let Dom escape.
The climactic car stunt is so OTT it gets referred to on-screen as some real Dukes of Hazzard shit. Ironically it was later parodied in the Starsky and Hutch movie.
A tweenage American boy, Sean (Lucas Black -
American Gothic
), goes to stay with his father in Tokyo.
He gets involved in the local street-racing scene.
Unfortunately the geography of Tokyo means that races are not straight-line affairs.
The drivers have to use a special cornering skill called drifting.
Our protagonist learns this the hard way,
and ends up having to work with a Chinese racer named Han.
The protagonist's flaw is that he keeps flirting with a bad guy's girl. Even in Tokyo this is still the case, when he befriends the villain's mixed-race girlfriend Nathalie Kelly .
This is set about ten years after it was made. However, Tokyo looks incredibly high-tech to Western eyes. When the hero and the love interest go on a date, the restuarant they eat at is basically a set of tables surrounded by vending machines. Yes, the high labour costs in Japan have incentivised complete automation of the food service industry. This is basically one step away from using robots to prepare all the food.
How does this fit in with the other films in the franchise? Well, Dominic Turetto (Vin Diesel - XXX ) appears at the end to establish himself as a friend of Han's. In fact, Han pops up at the start of the next film as a member of Dom's crew. It is later established that this film takes place immediately after the events of Fast And the Furious 6 (2013) .
Dominic Turetto (Vin Diesel -
XXX
) and his girlfriend Letty (
Michelle Rodriguez
) run a crew of hijackers in Latin America.
The heat is on them so they have to split up.
Han decides to head off to Japan and set up the storyline for
Tokyo Drift
, while Dom has to stay south of the Brandt line to avoid the FBI.
Letty is reported killed in a RTA in California. Brian (Paul Walker - Pleasantville ) got his job back at the FBI, and was running her as an informant in a drug-smuggling cartel. Now he goes undercover himself. Dominic does the same thing, and they have to work together again.
Brian finally gets a scene with Mia ( Jordana Brewster ), five years after he dumped her and left town.
The drug cartel is run by a mystery man. Security is provided by Gal Gadot , who takes a shine to Dom for some reason. He is technically single, but still grieving for Letty.
The climax happens after the FBI operation fails, and Brian is predictably suspended from his job. He and Dom have to go it alone, as all good heroes do. The problem is that although this franchise is known for its car chases and stunt driving, this time the climactic chase looks like a CGI cartoon. As a result, it is difficult to care about the characters or the outcome.
This picks up where the previous film left off.
A news broadcast tells us that, miraculously, there were no fatalities.
The audience will just have to accept this, no matter how implausible it is.
Our heroes go south of the Brandt line, and end up in Rio. Well, it was good enough for The Incredible Hulk . Anyway, they are low on cash so they take some local work. They have to steal some cars ... from a moving train.
The robbery plan seems good, but some things have been left out. The client did not mention that the cars had been impounded by the DEA. Dom decides to break with the plan in case of a double-cross, and things go downhill from there.
Like all great film noirs, the story is about a robbery gone wrong. Our heroes are implicated in the death of some DEA Agents. The USA sends in their best man - Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson - Welcome To The Jungle (2003) ). He recruits a translator ( Elsa Pataky ), and starts on our heroes' trail. His agenda is the same as Tommy Lee Jones in The Fugitive (1993), in that he will arrest a suspect he knows to be innocent. His team have automatic weapons, and will spray and pray rather than arrest suspects. Basically they view Rio as a free fire zone.
The local drug kingpin is looking to expand his operation. Well, after the heroes took out his Mexican competitor in the previous film there is certainly a gap in the market up north. He has a massive fortune in cash, stored at a series of stash houses across the city. The good guys decide to kill two birds with one stone - they can get rich and get revenge at the same time by stealing his cash.
The heist of the century needs the ultimate team. They pull in Han from Tokyo Drift , Tyrese and Ludacris from 2 Fast 2 Furious , and Gal Gadot the weapons specialist from Fast And Furious . With Brian now the token white man, the casting has been achieved naturally and without forced diversity. All the writers needed to do in order to create this team was gather the supporting characters from the previous films.
The heist plot keeps our heroes pro-active, and the Hobbs storyline is just a subplot. Naturally the subplot gets wrapped up, and Hobbs becomes one of the good guys.
The mid-credits sequence at the end features uncredited cameos by Eva Mendes and Michelle Rodriguez , which perfectly sets up the next movie.
After the events of the previous film,
the protagonists have retired from their lives of crime.
Brian (Paul Walker -
Pleasantville
) has shacked up with Mia (
Jordana Brewster
), the mother of his child.
Dominic (Vin Diesel -
XXX
) has a new girlfriend (
Elsa Pataky
). Rather than actually lie low,
they drive around the Spanish Canary Islands in flashy fast cars.
At least they are in a country that they think is non-extradition,
although in reality that would only be the case in a death penalty situation.
Hobbs (Dwayne Johnston - Journey 2 ) and his new sidekick ( Gina Carano ) are after the best hijacker in the world. Dom and his team are retired - but Hobbs has been keeping track of them, and pulls them out of retirement in order to catch the usurpers.
Dom gets his team back together, including Gal Gadot . She teams up with Carano, which is interesting in a couple of ways. Firstly, it means this film is close to passing the Bechdel test. Secondly, the two women were rivals for the role of Wonder Woman (2017) - and their scenes together here allow the audience to compare them.
The good guys no longer care about money. Their goal is far more chivalric - they want to save their friend Letty ( Michelle Rodriguez ), who was supposedly killed in the fourth movie. It turns out that the villain in that film was working for this movie's antagonist, who recruited her and faked her death. The reason she went along with it is due to traumatic amnesia.
The antagonist is an Englishman named Shaw (Luke Evans - Dracula Untold ), former leader of the SAS mobility troop during the invasion of Iraq. Not only does his crew have military training, they also have specialist vehicles. This is far above what Dom and the rest of his crew were doing in the first movie.
The final scene ties into Fast And the Furious 3: Tokyo Drift (2005) , and sets up the major antagonist for Fast And the Furious 7 (2015) .
Dom (Vin Diesel -
XXX
) and his team are still relaxing after the events of the previous film.
Brian (Paul Walker -
Pleasantville
) and his wife Mia (
Jordana Brewster
) are settling down and raising kids.
The main story involves Shaw (Jason Statham - The Expendables ) and his revenge plot. The problem is that the tone is now a bit too dark for a mainstream blockbuster. The straightforward plot gets a lot more complicated.
A US Government official codenamed Mr Nobody (Kurt Russell - Guardians Of The Galaxy 2 ) offers Dom a deal - get Shaw's attention by stealing something he wants. First they must rescue a computer programmer ( Nathalie Emmanuel ) while in transit. This sequence has a few references to The Italian Job (1969) . For example, they use a multi-coloured set of cars - and there is a scene where a bus ends up balanced on the edge of a cliff.
The action moves to Dubai, where our heroes have to steal a super-car from a penthouse apartment guarded by Ronda Rousey . This provides Letty with something to do. Last time she faced off against another female wrestler, Gina Carano . This is really a step up from the cat-fights of the 1960s.
The third act moves the action back to Los Angeles. A secondary antagonist (Djimon Houson - Guardians Of The Galaxy ) has to be defeated too.
This is the last film to feature Paul Walker. He died in real life, in a car crash - as a passenger of a friend, not driving himself. An ironic end indeed, considering that the series which made him famous has the most blatant don't try this at home, kids disclaimer since the .Nicholas Hammond TV show Spider-Man (1978) . But at least this movie gives him a proper send-off.
Dominic (Vin Diesel -
XXX
) is relaxing in the Carribean, just like in
XXX: Return of Xander Cage
. However, he gets dragged into a conspiracy
when he is blackmailed into working for a supervillain named Cipher (
Charlize Theron
). It turns out that she has been behind the villains in the previous three films,
so everything starts to link together plot-wise.
Okay, this is retroactive continuity the same way that
Spectre
linked all the previous Daniel Craig movies in the James Bond series.
Hobbs (Dwayne Johnston - Journey 2 ) gets the blame for Dom's defection. He gets a burn notice, and ends up in prison with previous villain Shaw (Jason Statham - The Mechanic ). Mister Nobody (Kurt Russell - The Thing (1982) ) gets them both out, but now they must work together. Nobody's sidekick Mister Nothing (Scott Eastwood - Texas Chainsaw 3D ) starts as a whiny pencil-pusher but later becomes the team's token white guy, replacing the Paul Walker character (who has gotten his happy ending with Dom's sister). The result is a formulaic live-action cartoon that glamourises all kinds of car stunts, which is ironic because one of the main actors of the series died in a car crash.
The trailer gives away everything and nothing. Basically the whole movie is two and a half hours worth of car chases, while the trailer is only two and a half minutes of the same. The street-racers use their super-cars to fight a submarine at the north pole. What is next - Fast and Furious in Space?
This starts in London, with an MI5 SWAT team
closing in on an illegal weapons dealer
who has samples of a programmable virus.
A super-human mercenary named Brixton (Idris Elba -
28 Weeks Later
) wipes out most of the team. Hattie (
Vanessa Kirby
) gets away with the virus,
so Brixton frames her to ensure she cannot take the virus back to MI5.
Hobbs (Dwayne Johnston - Journey 2 ) gets recruited by CIA Agent Locke (Ryan Reynolds - Deadpool ) to recover the stolen virus. Shaw (Jason Statham - The Mechanic ) is also roped in by the CIA. After all, Hattie the MI5 agent is his estranged sister. According to the flashbacks of their childhood they are meant to be about the same age, but Statham is twenty years older than she is!
The story introduces a lot of familiar faces. Shaw's mother ( Helen Mirren ) was introduced in the previous film, but now there are a few more characters in this universe. Kevin Hart (The Rock's co-star from two Jumanji films) makes an uncredited cameo as an air marshal. Madame M ( Eiza Gonzalez ), a former lover of Shaw's, helps the good guys - as does a timid scientist, Professor Andrenko (Eddie Marsan - Hancock ). However, the most impressive new character is Brixton the villain. He is a cyborg with a mechanical spinal column, which allows him to bounce back like Wylie E. Coyote, and Idris Elba loves to chew the scenery. Unfortunately he is lumbered with a cliched backstory - he is Shaw's former partner, with a personal grudge. That said, he is under orders from a mysterious controller ... possibly NOT Cipher ( Charlize Theron ), the mysterious arch-villain of the main franchise.
After almost ninety minutes, the story could be happily concluded. However, like a movie in the James Bond franchise it gets dragged out for an extra half-hour so they can squeeze in more action scenes. Since the theme of the movie is Family, Hobbs takes the Shaw siblings to meet his relatives on Samoa. After all, it is off the grid - and they need the help of his estranged brother Jonah (Cliff Curtis - Fear The Walking Dead ). Remember, Hobbs and Shaw are working for the CIA so the whole stay-off-the-grid thing is just made up
The after-credits sequences make the most of Ryan Reynolds and his ability to motor-mouth about violent acts.
Dom (Vin Diesel -
XXX
) and Letty (
Michelle Rodriguez
) have retired to raise Dom Junior in a remote farmhouse.
Luckily the call to adventure arrives.
The good news is that Mister Nobody (Kurt Russell -
The Thing (1982)
) captured arch-villain Cipher (
Charlize Theron
). The bad news is that someone intercepted the plane.
Now Dom and the team must come out of retirement
in order to retrieve a super-weapon and save the world.
The villain turns out to be Dom's hitherto-unmentioned brother Jacob (John Cena - Bumblebee ). This family reunion is a good excuse for Mia ( Jordana Brewster ) to come out of retirement too. Presumably Brian (Paul Walker - Pleasantville ) is left at home to look after the children. The feud between Dom and Jacob is central to the story. There are a few flashbacks to their childhood, with a friendly mechanic (Michael Rooker - Guardians Of The Galaxy ) who worked on their dad's pit crew. Of course, since the Franchise's there is Family it is inevitable that the brothers will work out their differences somehow. That makes this movie uncomfortable viewing, insofar as the fact that any antagonist without the surname Turretto is bound to meet the most horrible death that this movie's PG-13 rating will allow.
As with Moonraker , this franchise has gone on for so long that the only logical step is to take it into outer space. Luckily Sean (Lucas Black - American Gothic ) and his new crew have a rocket-powered car that fits the bill.
This starts ten years ago, with the climax of
Fast Five (2011)
. The drug lord of Rio de Janeiro, Hernan Reyes (Joaquim de Almeida -
), is one of many fatalities in a massive deadly car chase.
His son, Dante (Jason Momoa -
Aquaman
), barely survives.
In the modern day, Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel - XXX ) holds a family dinner for his grandmother Abuelita ( Rita Moreno ). His sister Mia ( Jordana Brewster ) comes along - Brian is not mentioned, even though we just saw him in the flashback clip. Presumably he is looking after the kids or something. Anyway, the emphasis is on the importance of Dom's family.
Cipher ( Charlize Theron ) drags herself into view, and delivers exposition. Dante has stolen her weaponised technology and her henchmen. He is avenging his own family by threatening the henchmens' families. Of course, the only family that matters in this movie is Dom's.
Dom calls in his US Government Agency contact, Little Nobody (Scott Eastwood - ). They try to save the rest of the crew from a trap Dante set for them. The bad news is that Dante is expecting them. The Agency is now run by Aimes (Alan Ritchson - Ghosts of War ), who blacklists the entire Toretto crew. The only official willing to help Dom is Tess ( Brie Larson ), daughter of the now-retired Mister Nobody (Kurt Russell - The Thing (1982) ). Not only is she an Agency aristocrat, she is also capable of beating up a bar full of thugs despite being stick-thin skinny. She helps Letty ( Michelle Rodriguez ) bust out of a secret Black Site prison, although Letty would rather try to murder Cipher than stick to the escape plan. At least this should pass the Bechdel test.
Without legitimate contacts, the crew have to use their underworld contacts. Queenie ( Helen Mirren ) pops up to help Dom briefly. The others get smuggled to London, where the computer programmer ( Nathalie Emmanuel ) visits her crooked acqquaintance Bowie (Pete Davidson - Suicide Squad ). Although they do not contact Queenie herself, they call on her son Shaw (Jason Statham - The Expendables ).
Meanwhile, Mia is stuck babysitting Dom's son. Just like Tess, she is a skinny girl who can beat up a SWAT team single-handed. And just like Shaw, Jakob (John Cena - Peacemaker ) is a former Big Bad who turns up to slaughter lots of cops in order to redeem himself by helping Dom's friends and family.
This is a worthy addition to the franchise. A gang of murderous hypocrites employ cartoon physics to slaughter infinite faceless henchmen in scenes that depict violence without consequences. All previous surviving villains, including Cipher, are somehow redeemed of all murders of unnamed (and named) characters. Despite the massive all-star cast, the new Big Bad - the flambuoyant Dante - is a stand-out turn by Momoa. He was previously booked to play the Cliff Curtis character in Hobbs And Shaw (2019) , but this is a far better fit.
This is a remake of a 1970s thriller starring Charles Bronson.
Arthur Bishop (Jason Statham -
The Expendables
) is an assassin
who specialises in making his kills look like accidents.
All goes well, until he is ordered to kill his mentor - Harry (Donald Sutherland -
Body Snatchers
).
Harry's son (Ben Foster - Pandorum ) is a loose cannon in search of a purpose in life. Arthur takes the young man under his wing, and trains him as an assassin. So far, so much like the original.
While the original movie relied on a certain amount of subtlety, this one ups the ante and has a lot more shoot-outs and explosions. Where the original would use a glass of poisoned water, this version has a massive fireball. However, this is not a heroic shoot-em-up. Just like the 1970s original, it is a gritty revenge thriller. Foster delivers an amazing performance, as per usual, and is a fitting foil for Statham.
This is a sequel to a remake of a 1970s thriller.
Yes, Jason Statham (
The Expendables
) has been accepted as the new Charles Bronson
so clearly that he now has his own action-movie franchise.
In fact, this is his SECOND if you count the
Transporter
films.
Despite the basic plot, things have been updated from the seventies.
For example, the protagonist uses a smart-phone for certain key tasks.
The action starts with Bishop (Jason Statham) on the run after the events of the previous film. He has headed south of the Brandt line, to Rio in Brazil. This makes for the best action scenes set there since James Bond visited in Moonraker .
Bishop then hides out in Thailand with Michelle Yeoh , where he lies low on a remote beach. Jessica Alba blunders into his life, and he is subjected to a blatant ham-fisted seduction. Even Bishop realises it is a setup, but he falls for her anyway. Then she is kidnapped and used for leverage.
The villain's plan is for Bishop to conduct a series of assassinations. The trick is that he must make them look like accidents. Apparently this is Bishop's speciality, as a thinker and not a muscle-man. However, Bishop is also a one-man army who can take out an entire army of bodyguards single-handedly.
The first two victims on the hit-list are generic bad-guys. However, the third and final one is Tommy Lee Jones ( Under Siege (1992) ) who seems to have wandered in from a better film.
This is a generic by-the-numbers Statham shoot-em-up. There are a couple of potentially good ideas in this film. One is the casting of Alba, who was an action star in her own right in Dark Angel . Unfortunately, despite showing off a bit of martial arts skill she was basically cast purely because she looks good in a bikini. The other piece of wasted potential is the villain himself. His backstory is that he and Bishop were raised together as child soldiers. Despite being the old cliche of the personal grudge, this also sets the villain up as being Bishop's equal and thus a potentially worthy and memorable adversary.
In 1971, mockney gangster Terry Leather (Jason Statham -
The Expendables
) is happily married to Wendy (
Keeley Hawes
). He is hired by his ex-girlfriend, rich dolly-bird Martine Love (
Saffron Burrows
), to rob a safety-deposit vault under a bank.
She has been put up to it by a contact in the British Government,
because one of the boxes contains photos
being used to blackmail a British Royal.
The owner is a Jamaican gangster
who hangs around with Hakim Jamal (Colin Salmon -
Arrow
).
The second act is a farce, as the bumbling burglars fool around in the most amateurish way. Dave Shilling (Daniel Mays - Limehouse Golem ), for example, is a famous porn-star who orders takeway food delivered to the site of the robbery ... under his own name. Small surprise that, while this is supposedly based on true events, it was written by British 1980s sitcom creators Dick Clement & Ian La Frenais .
The third act descends into horrendous grimness, which is at odds with the comedy of the second act. Leather and his gang have access to several boxes of blackmail material. The villains, such as porn baron Lew Vogel (David Suchet - ) and corrupt cop Nick Barton (Craig Fairbrass - ) will torture and murder anyone they get their hands on so that they can recover the blackmail documents.
The beekeeper (Jason Statham -
The Expendables
) is a retired US Government assassin,
part of a group codenamed the Beekeepers.
His retirement job is to keep bees.
How very imaginative!
By incredible coincidence,
the old lady he rents farmland from falls victim to a phishing scam.
She kills herself, so the Beekeeper goes on a murderous revenge spree.
By incredible coincidence,
the old lady's daughter is an FBI agent.
The twenty-something tech CEO who owns the phishers is Danforth (Josh Hutcherson - Hunger Games ). His head of security (Jeremy Irons - ) contacts the CIA Director Janet ( Minnie Driver ), who sends in an assassin. There are also a couple of teams of private security goons, the FBI SWAT team (AKA the Hostage Rescue Team) and the US Secret Service's response team. Of course, the Beekeeper sleepwalks through them all and barely gets a scratch.
This may be a very basic revenge spee story with a predictably two-dimensional protagonist, but it has a couple of modern-day trappings. The phishing scam depends on the victims being elderly people who are dependent on technology they are ill-equipped to use. Most importantly, the Tech CEO is not just a regular greedy Millennial. He is the coke-snorting son of the POTUS, presumably meant to be Hunter Biden. The POTUS is his mother, the first female POTUS, which would make her an reference to Hillary Clinton. The Beekeeper is a blue-collar American, presumably the embodiment of the MAGA insurrectionists out to take revenge on white-collar Liberal society.
The real irony is that, as this movie was being made, the leader of the MAGA movement was being convicted of multiple examples of the criminal behaviour that the villain of this piece is guilty of. However, by coding it as an anti-Biden/Clinton movie the filmmakers avoided accusations of Trump Derangement Syndrome.
A tough police detective (Jason Statham -
Mechanic (2011)
) is transferred to a new precinct in London.
He works with a gay cop (Paddy Considine -
Dead Man's Shoes
).
A serial killer (Aidan Gillen - Game of Thrones ) is killing police officers in that precinct.
A gangster (Wesley Snipes -
Blade (1998)
) holds a city to ransom.
A disgraced ex-cop (Jason Statham -
Hobbs and Shaw (2019)
) is called in to negotiate.
Statham is partnered with rookie detective (Ryan Phillipe - Way of the Gun). The police are backed up by Canadian talent, such as Detective Nicholas Lea ( X-Files ) and CSI Keegan Connor Tracey .
The ending has a couple of twists in it. Pretty standard stuff, though.
Phil Broker (Jason Statham -
Mechanic (2011)
) is an undercover DEA Agent.
He takes down a biker gang run by Danny Turrie (Chuck Zito -
), but it ends in an incident of police brutality so excessive
that even this kind of copaganda story has trouble justifying it.
Later, Broker has retired and become a single dad raising his young daughter in a remote Louisiana redneck town. Since he was somehow windowered off-screen, his only potential love interest is Susan Hetch ( Rachelle Lefevre ) - his daughter's school headmistress. Unfortunately Susan only gets a couple of scenes: this is not the kind of movie with a romantic subplot, while the daughter and her cat suffice as damsels in distress.
Cassie Bodine Klum ( Kate Bosworth ), the local trailer trash, tells her meth-cooking brother Gator (James Franco - Spider-Man ) to take revenge on Broker on her behalf. He discovers Broker's secret identity as an undercover Fed, then gets his girlfriend Sheryl Marie Mott ( Winona Ryder ) to contact Danny's lawyer (Pruitt Taylor Vince - Monster ). Danny sends his henchman, Cyrus Hanks (Frank Grillo - Winter Soldier ), to kill Broker and his daughter.
This is pretty standard stuff for Statham, with nothing really original. The most surprising thing about the movie is the fact that the sleazy waitress banging James Franco does not just look like Winona ... In fact, this is only slightly less surprising than if Winona's career had failed so badly that she had become an actual waitress and started banging James Franco for real.
Our protagonist, Joey Jones (Jason Statham -
Mechanic (2011)
), is a military combat veteran who ended up homeless.
When hassled by criminals who prey on the homeless,
Joey hides out in an upscale apartment.
Since the owner is out of the country for a few months,
Joey ends up posing as the rich man in question.
Joey gets hired by a Chinese gangster (Benedict Wong - Dr Strange ) as a driver, which means he is doing a lot of strong-arm work. Well, he only beats up other gangsters. The money goes to worthwhile causes, like his ex-wife ( Vicky Mcclure ) and Cristina the nun ( Agata Buzek ) who runs the local homeless shelter.
A violent punter kills a hooker that Joey befriended. Now Joey splits his time between hunting the killer and romancing the nun. Reminiscent of Heat , he must choose between love and vengeance.
This starts with Robert DeNiro and an elite team of criminals
staging an ambush that turns into a shootout.
Yes, this seems a deliberate homage to
Heat
since none of this is in the book.
A year later, Hunter (DeNiro) has been locked up for stealing from a disgruntled client. The client, an oil sheik, insists that the rest of the team carry out a series of assassinations. Danny (Jason Statham - Mechanic (2011) ) has retired, and has a love interest named Annie ( Yvonne Strahovski ). He reluctantly gets the team back together. The bad news is that the targets are veterans of the best Special Forces unit in the world!
Danny's sidekick (Dominic Purcell - ) visits Hereford, seeking gossip about Major Cregg (Grant Bowler - Defiance ). Unfortunately this brings attention from Spike (Clive Owen - Shoot'Em Up ), head of security for a group called Feather Men. In some clunky verbal exposition, we learn that their group was set up for exactly this eventuality. Spike and his sidekick Pennock (Matt Nable - Riddick ) start hunting the killers.
This is inspired by (technicalley not based on) a non-fiction book, The Feather Men, which is really a novel posing as a True Crime story. Although most of the action is set in Oman and England, this was filmed in Australia. The give-away is the cast, which contains a lot of familiar faces from down under. All in all it is just a basic action thriller, certainly not the kind of thing that passes the Bechdel test. The one thing that is a real disappointment is the fact that Strahovski's talents are wasted. When this film was made, she was best known for the TV show Chuck - playing a CIA assassin who could take out every male character in this film.
Parker (Jason Statham -
Mechanic (2011)
) is an expert at armed robbery with violence.
He hires himself out on a job planned by his old partner,
Hurley (Nick Nolte -
Hulk
). However, he gets double-crossed by his new team -
Melander (Michael Chiklis -
Fantastic Four
) and his sidekick Carlson (Wendel Pierce -
Twilight 5
). Now our anti-hero goes on a quest for revenge and restitution.
So far, so Point Blank (1967).
Parker follows his victims to Florida, where he meets an estate agent named Leslie Rodgers ( Jennifer Lopez ). Rather than fraternize with the flirty local cop, Jake Fernandez (Bobby Cannavale - Ant-Man ), Leslie insinuates herself into Parker's robbery/revenge plot.
There is also a subplot about Parker being hunted by a hit-man named Kroll (Daniel Bernhardt - Santa's Summer House ).
Jake Greene (Jason Statham -
Hobbs and Shaw (2019)
) is released from prison after seven years in solitary confinement.
The imprisonment may have affected his mind,
because the film has a somewhat surreal quality.
That said, it is all typical
Guy Ritchie
stuff.
Greene humiliates a local mob boss, Macha (Ray Liotta - Goodfellas ), who in turn sends top hitman Slaughter (Mark Strong - Kingsman ) after him. Luckily, a pair of loan sharks take Greene under their wing. They have a plan of their own, setting Macha against other mobsters by stealing their money and dope.
A down-on-his-luck competitor (Jason Statham -
Mechanic (2011)
) discovers his wife has been murdered, and he is in the frame.
If this sounds familiar, that is because Statham already did this role in
Death Race (2008)
. This time he is a cage fighter instead of a race driver, but it is the same basic setup.
The hero takes it upon himself to protect a young child who has a special ability with mathematics.
If this storyline sounds familiar, that is because it was used in a Bruce Willis movie.
Yes, so much for originality.
The child in question is a Chinese girl who is in the clutches of a Chinatown gangster (James Hong - Big Trouble In Little China ) and his murderous henchman (Reggie Lee - Grimm ). Because she is valuable, she is also hunted by the Russian Mafia. Yes, both sides in this gang war are foreign immigrants - the USA apparently has no gangsters of its own.
The third side is a team of corrupt police detectives commanded by Robert John Burke, who plays similar roles in TV shows like Law and Order: SVU. He works for the corrupt Mayor (Chris Sarandon - Fright Night (1986) ), who has teamed up with Alex (Anson Mount - All The Boys Love Mandy Lane ).
The whole movie takes a turn into an entirely different genre. Our hero is no longer a good man down on his luck who takes a chivalric interest in protecting a small child. Instead he is a poor man's John Wick , a one-man army on a crusade to wipe out the Russian mob. And he also has a new backstory to go with the new direction the story has taken. The down-on-his-luck cage fighter was once an assassin for the corrupt cops, assigned to them after the Mayor recruited him from a Special Forces hit-squad.
FBI Agent Crawford (Jason Statham -
Hobbs and Shaw (2019)
) and his partner are on the trail of Rogue (Jet Li -
The Expendables
), a Chinese assassin who works for the Japanese Yakuza.
Unfortunately, the partner and his family are killed
and Rogue disappears.
Years later, Rogue returns to San Francisco and starts working for local Triad boss Chang (John Lone - ). The Triads are at war with the Yakuza, Rogue's former employers, led by Kira ( Devon Aoki ). In a subplot, Rogue befriends Chang's wife Maria ( Nadine Velazquez ).
Crawford is obsessed with taking down Rogue. However, Rogue's own agenda is to play the Triads and Yakuza against each other.
Meanwhile, Crawford has his FBI sidekick Benny (Luis Guzman - ) hunt down Dr Sherman (Saul Rubinek - Warehouse 13 ) - the man who did Rogue's plastic surgery. This leads on to a somewhat predictable twist.
Nick Wild (Jason Statham -
Hobbs and Shaw (2019)
) is a professional tough-guy in Las Vegas, USA.
At night he gets beaten up to impress women like DD (
Sophia Vergara
). In the morning, after coffee with Roxy the waitress (
Anne Heche
), he shares an office with Pinky the lawyer (Jason Alexander -
). Nick's newest client is Cyrus Kinnick (Michael Angarano -
Sun Dogs (2017)
), a rich tweenager who wants to try gambling.
Nick's friend Holly ( Dominik Garcia-Lorido ) has been assaulted by Danny DeMarco (Milo Ventimiglia - Heroes ), so he helps her to get revenge. Unfortunately DeMarco is son of a big-time East Coast gangster, so Nick has to sort things out with Baby (Stanley Tucci - The Terminal ), chief man of the local mob.
While Nick is a generic Jason Statham character, he is not a completely two-dimensional character. His flaw is that he is a compulsive gambler, which means that he is his own worst enemy. He plays baccarrat in the casino so frequently that he is on first name terms with Cassandra the croupier ( Hope Davis ). And while he is a skilled player, sooner or later he will eventually run out of luck.
Frank Martin (Jason Statham -
Mechanic (2011)
) AKA The Transporter, is the best getaway driver in the world.
He works as a wheelman for bank-robbers, smugglers and other gangsters.
Unfortunately, this means he is liable to get double-crossed.
It also puts him in jeopardy of developing a conscience.
This should probably just be a car-chase movie, like Drive . After all, it was created by Luc Besson , the man behind the Taxi series. However, this has a more varied collection of action scenes. After all, Frank is not merely the best driver in the world. He is also a one-man army, an expert in all weapons and all forms of unarmed combat.
Frank Martin (Jason Statham -
Mechanic (2011)
) has a new car, and has relocated to Miami.
He seems to have gone for law-abiding clients,
and is now chauffeur to the schoolchild of a VIP (Matthew Modine -
). He also gets some alone time with the boss's neglected wife (
Amber Valetta
).
The local super-villain sends his murderous girlfriend ( Kate Nauta ) to abduct the boy. She struts around in high heels and lingerie while wielding a matched pair of fully automatic, fully surpressed handguns. The only thing that slows her down is her bumbling henchman (Jason Fleming - Primeval ).
FBI Special Agent In Charge (Keith David - The Thing (1982) ) suspects it is an inside job, so Frank is treated as a suspect. He must solve the case and save the boy single-handed. Well, the French detective from the first movie is in town but he is basically just the comedy relief.
Frank may be a former British Army Special Forces soldier. However, his skillset more closely resembles that of a Hong Kong stuntman. For example, he takes on a group of thugs by using a fire-hose as if he were Jackie Chan. The difference is that Jackie's movies are comedy-thriller romps while this is a more serious neo-noir revenge-type thriller. The result is that the tone of the movie alternates between serious and jokey. In fact, the whole effort is disturbingly bloodless. Even the most gruesome kill scene is without visible bloodshed.
Frank Martin (Jason Statham -
Mechanic (2011)
) is enjoying a happy retirement.
So happy, in fact, that the local police detective formerly hunting him down
is now his best buddy that he goes fishing with.
Unfortunately, Frank gets pulled out of retirement with a bang.
A rent-a-villain named Johnson (Robert Knepper - iZombie ) and his team of goons are pressuring a senior Ukrainian official named Leonid Vasilev (Jeroen Krabbe - Living Daylights (1987) ) to allow them to dump vast amounts of toxic waste in his country. Their leverage is kept in a car, and the plan is to keep the car moving to prevent interception by Vasilev's people.
Frank is anchored to the car by an explosive bracelet. If he goes more than fifty feet from the vehicle, his bracelet will explode and vapourise him. This is basically a variation on the premise of Speed (1994) .
The action scenes are basically copied from the original movie. And in fact, the original movie did it better.
This starts in 1995,
when the Russian mob moves into the south of France.
They make their mark by using military firepower
to wipe out a gang of African pimps
with no apparent reaction from local law enforcement.
In the modern day, Frank Martin (Ed Skrein - Game Of Thrones ) is visited by his father (Ray Stevenson - Rome ). The older man is abducted by a gang of sexy whores, who use him to extort help from the Transporter. They have decided to take on their pimp, who is now head of the local Russian mob. Their strategy is to hit a series of targets, taking a hundred million from each of the top mobsters.
What is more unlikely? That a gang of pimps could have turned over three hundred million dollars in a couple of decades ... or that a gang of whores could become experts in a set of skills that would make the average Secret Agent proud? Ah well, in this kind of movie there is a necessity for suspension of disbelief.
This role was originally offered to Jason Statham ( Mechanic (2011) ), the original Frank Martin. He only turned it down because the Producers could not afford his fee, so presumably the script was more or less the same. Perhaps the Ray Stevenson character was meant to be his brother, because Stevenson and Statham are far too close in age to be mistaken for father and son. Anyway, this movie is a prime example of a soft reboot (sequel) being retooled into a hard reboot (reimagining).
US Black Ops boss Gibbons (Samuel L Jackson -
Marvel Avengers
) realises he needs a new type of Secret Agent,
someone who can think outside the box.
The top candidate is an extreme sports enthusiast, Xander Cage (Vin Diesel -
Riddick
).
Cage is subjected to a series of dangerous test scenarios, including an encounter with a dangerous drug warlord (Danny Trejo - Machete ).
XXX is sent on his first mission. He must infiltrate a gang of Euro-Trash anarchists run by Marton Csokas ( Xena: Warrior Princess ). The good news is that he gets to hook up with tough-girl Asia Argento .
The IMF - oops, the XXX program - is disavowed.
Xander Cage (Vin Diesel -
Riddick
) is written off as killed in action.
His replacement (Ice Cube -
Ghosts of Mars
) is a career criminal who was somehow allowed to become a Navy SEAL.
The result is a blaxploitation movie,
with the most negative racial stereotypes since Big Momma's House.
Gibbons (Samuel L Jackson - Marvel Avengers ) has a rival in the US military-industrial complex. The villain is Colonel Decker - oops, Defence Secretary Deckert ( Spiderman ). If only they had just made Nick Fury versus Green Goblin instead.
Ice Cube teams up with Gibbons' informant, Charlie ( Sunny Mabrey ). Will he seal the deal with a white she-devil, described as black man's kryptonite in Undercover Brother ?
Samuel L. Jackson has stopped recruiting for
Marvel Avengers
, and is back to recruiting for the XXX program.
US Intelligence boss Marke ( Toni Collette ) has obtained a super-weapon, Pandora's Box. This is just a codename, like the Rabbit's Foot in Mission Impossible 3 , not literally the ancient artefact from Lara Croft: Cradle of Life . She displays the device to a conference of her fellow Intelligence Heads, a group of rent-a-villains like Nigel Bennett ( Lexx ). Then a highly-skilled intruder (Donnie Yen - Rogue One: A Star Wars Tale ) breaks in and steals the weapon!
Marke has a tech nerd ( Nina Dobrev ), but needs a team of specialists for field-work. She finds Xander Cage (Vin Diesel - Riddick ), who faked his death after the first film. Cage has his own team of buddies, including a stunt-driver (Rory McCann - Game of Thrones ) and a sniper ( Ruby Rose ). They go undercover, posing as crooks on the run.
This is a cheesy and cheerful action extravaganza. It displays no respect for the laws of physics, although it does display a lot of violence without consequences. Like the John Wayne movies of the Hayes Code era, a cowboy can get shot but he never bleeds. The film may have a PG-13 certificate, but that is only because of the language. Dobrev says This is f*cking great! at the end.
The protagonist,
(Liam Neeson -
The protagonist,
(Liam Neeson -
The protagonist,
(Liam Neeson -
The protagonist,
(Liam Neeson -
