Release Date: 31 Jan 2013
Genre: Action / Thriller
Running Time: 91 minutes
Director: Walter Hill
Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Sarah Shahi, Jason Momoa
Synopsis
After watching their respective partners die, a cop (Sung Kang) and a hitman (Sylvester Stallone) join forces for an alliance in order to bring down their common enemy.
Our Review
In retrospect, action movies are all about gun fights and gory fighting scenes with bombs every where in place. It’s straightforward, it’s simple without any plot twists in the end and this is what we don’t usually see in the latest action-packed films. Perhaps director, Walter Hill was feeling a little bit nostalgic about the past – he insisted in infusing all the elements from his 80s action films which all seems like low-budget films for now.
Yes, it does look like a low-budget film at first glance when the movie first started. The cheesy narrations by Jimmy Bobo (Sylvester Stallone) in the film gave us goosebumps. James Bobo, a professional hitman in New Orleans and partner-in-crime, Loius Blanchard (Jon Seda) were sent off to kill a cop-turned-blackmailer, Hank Greely (Holt McCallany). Surprisingly, despite being the cruel hitman, Bobo sticks to a rule in doing his job which you should find out what it is in the film. It all seems like just another day of doing their job until Bobo’s partner was knifed by a guy in a bar, who also attempted to knife Bobo.
The scene jumps into the next scene, where a new police detective, Taylor Kwon (Sung Kang) from D.C arrives in the town to track down his ex-partner’s killer, which is, of course Jimmy Bobo. It turns out every thing was planned out when Kwon was also a target of the whole killings. Bobo and Kwon decided to team up to take down whoever that is responsible for the killings. The team is near perfect with Kwon’s smartphone device that allows them to obtain information of all the killings-related people and Bobo’s fast yet abnormal strength to fight.
The dialogues between Kwon and Bobo are simple and laughable, especially with Bobo’s sarcastic response to Kwon’s. It’s so cliche and we’d know what they’re about to say next. Admittedly, the dialogues are poorly-written and it seems like the actors didn’t know what to do with it either but just go along with it. But we couldn’t blame them either, since this is supposed to be an action-packed film with more actions, less talk!
If there is one thing to look forward in this film, it would’ve been the battle scene between Bobo and his partner’s killer, Keegan (Jason Moma). It’s intense and probably the best part of the film among all the other fighting scenes. There are also some worth-watching parts in the film, especially whenever Kwon constant reminders about him being a cop who is going to take Bobo after the revenge and Kwon’s cop principles, which Bobo doesn’t hold. Overall, this film is not a bad film, but it wouldn’t be Stallone’s best film either.
If you haven’t watched the trailer yet – watch it here:
