Bobby Z is the halfway point within Paul Walker's short filmography. Whilst never a great actor, Walker had looks and charisma to be a star and if not for his tragic death, he would be one of one Hollywood's biggest action stars by now. He proved he could carry a film by himself such as he did in the hyperstyle headache known as Running Scared. However, Bobby Z is definitely one of his weaker films and through whatever misfortune such as lack of money or commitment, comes off as just a direct to video affair with a big ass studio budget of twenty two million dollars.
God knows what happened, but someone buried this film and whilst mediocre, i sure as hell have seen worse action films at the cinema. Bobby Z makes more sense now since I found out it was an adaptation of a crime novel. Here was me thinking why are there so many secondary and tertiary characters fleshed out for no point whatsoever and now it all makes sense now. Poor adaptation of a book that probably wasn't all that good to begin with. The plot simply does not translate well into the Smoking Aces like action film they are trying to make here.
It's that awkward combination of character and plot that works perfectly fine on paper, but if not given the right treatment, will come off on screen as overwrought. It doesn't help that the characters are all types we have seen a thousand times before and are not worth talking about. This is just another laissez faire depiction of the disastrous war on drugs that has taken thousands of lives already and it all was very coy and gay and i didn't care for it. Bobby Z is a below average crime action thriller that does not deliver in either spectacle or drama and whose only two highlights probably took up half the budget.
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