Wesley Snipes has transformed himself from a box office star into a B-movie action hero, joining the ranks of Seagal and Van Damme in turning out straight-to-DVD thrillers in a bid to make a buck or too. This one was filmed in Eastern Europe and Wales, although the action is supposedly set in London.
Right from the start, you know there are two things wrong with this movie: the script and the direction. The script is a cobbled-together rehash of different movies. The film starts off as a SHOOTER rip-off, going so far as including an absolutely hilarious "chase" scene in a London cab that's going about ten miles an hour. It then turns into LEON, with Snipes hiding out in a disused flat and a little girl looking after him. After some conspiracy stuff the movie kind of falls apart and there's about two or three action scenes until it ends. Definitely no thrills.
The direction is uninspired, with lame attempts at Greengrass-style shaky-cam work (so wonderfully employed in the last two Bourne films) and super-fast editing in an attempt to hide the paucity of the budget. One shoot-out uses strobe lighting just to hide the lack of talent/props/scenery evident. Snipes, an actor who can trade on plentiful charisma if not acting talent, sleepwalks through his role, and even the kid – usually a focus point for the audience's emotion in a film like this – is dull. Surprisingly, they enlisted a couple of well-known actors in support, including pretty Lena Heady (given a boring cop role) and Charles Dance, who never seems too sure of what he's doing here. Ralph Brown (ALIEN 3) is better as the corrupt bad guy, but it's nothing to get excited about.
So, barely any action, ridiculous continuity, an unbelievable rip-off script, lots of boring drawn-out scenes yep, this is another straight-to-DVD disaster that isn't worth your while.
Right from the start, you know there are two things wrong with this movie: the script and the direction. The script is a cobbled-together rehash of different movies. The film starts off as a SHOOTER rip-off, going so far as including an absolutely hilarious "chase" scene in a London cab that's going about ten miles an hour. It then turns into LEON, with Snipes hiding out in a disused flat and a little girl looking after him. After some conspiracy stuff the movie kind of falls apart and there's about two or three action scenes until it ends. Definitely no thrills.
The direction is uninspired, with lame attempts at Greengrass-style shaky-cam work (so wonderfully employed in the last two Bourne films) and super-fast editing in an attempt to hide the paucity of the budget. One shoot-out uses strobe lighting just to hide the lack of talent/props/scenery evident. Snipes, an actor who can trade on plentiful charisma if not acting talent, sleepwalks through his role, and even the kid – usually a focus point for the audience's emotion in a film like this – is dull. Surprisingly, they enlisted a couple of well-known actors in support, including pretty Lena Heady (given a boring cop role) and Charles Dance, who never seems too sure of what he's doing here. Ralph Brown (ALIEN 3) is better as the corrupt bad guy, but it's nothing to get excited about.
So, barely any action, ridiculous continuity, an unbelievable rip-off script, lots of boring drawn-out scenes yep, this is another straight-to-DVD disaster that isn't worth your while.