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.
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