Why I Saw This*: It was a light week for new offerings. My Christmas binging has left fewer options. I'm always looking for a movie that is better than it has any right to be and this has the perfect making of that since it looked pretty awful.
*A new category I'm trying out, since I have a lot of different motivations for the movies I see and I think that admitting my reasoning going in will help to explain the tone of my reaction.
Cast: Arnold Schwartzenegger is a known quantity and it isn't one that gets better with age (a sad truth of action movie stars). The question here is "Is there enough left?", to which I would say, "sure." This is a little more team oriented than I remember in the past, meaning he didn't have to do quite as much. Still, he is still imposing enough to sell his character. Johnny Knoxville knows the characters he plays and does it well. I've had a soft-spot for him ever since being surprised by The Ringer being better than expected. Luis Guzman, Jamie Alexander, Rodriguo Santoro, and QB1, Zach Gilford round out the good guys fulfilling their archetypal character roles. Forest Whitaker is in this, playing the same role he would've played 10 years ago, proving that his Academy Award winning turn a few years back was more of a fluke than a sign he was breaking out of character actor territory. He's, not surprisingly, better than his material in this.
Plot: I imagine the pitch for this was "A small town sheriff stops a drug cartel's army" and Arnold was already signed on. To say that all the dialogue was wooden is accurate. The characters had the minimal level of development required. The story of how the escaped druglord finds himself driving through the small Arizona town is extraordinarily contrived. Look at the movie poster though. Does it looking like it is promising anything more in those categories? The only thing a reasonable person should be asking about it is "how's the action?". To that, I say it is ably done and makes as many excuses as it can to feature car chases, gun fights, and fisticuffs with enough cheap humor to not be taken too seriously. If you just accept that these action sequences are happening, they are pretty good.
Elephant in the Room: I saw the Expendables. Do I need to see this? It's true that this movie and Bullet to the Head come off as Iron Man to The Expendables' The Avengers, splitting up the cast and thinking that since it worked as a group, it can work as individuals. While that isn't a perfect analogy, I'd say that if you like the "turn your mind off" quality of The Expendables, this has all of that as well.
Movie Theater MVP: I wish I could ever enjoy a movie as much as the old man in the row in front of mine. He could not contain his excitement in the gun fights and was howling in his seat at some of Knoxville's physical comedy. I'm not being patronizing here. I would love to enjoy a movie that much.
To Sum Things Up:
I find myself saying this a lot, but this movie is exactly what you'd expect. A lot of people will turn their noses to it, which is fine. If I didn't see movies every week, I'd never get around to seeing it. There is a value in this movie for some people. You know who you are. This is vintage Schwartzenegger and I'd rate it higher than some of his pre-Governator works like Collateral Damage. It's not one of those hidden January gems, nor is it a shined turd.
Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend
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