1 out of 5

Directed by: Steven C. Miller

My god, are we done with this Lionsgate picture deal yet?  Mr. Willis apparently signed  a 10-picture deal with them, and its amounted to straight-to-video clunkers, all shot on digital with “gritty” filters, all featuring one or two B-List actors to add to the promotions, occasionally featuring 50-Cent (note: not considering him an actor. Woop woop!), and, as mentioned in the commentary most times, only getting Bruce for one day of shooting.  So, yes, the performances are dialed in because Bruce is truly just plugged in for a name.  This is true made-to-hire work: A script is cycled up through hands, a budget is secured, a date set (this was shot in 12 days, it sounds like), a director called, and you get started.

Steven C. Miller talks about trying to work in some humor and wanting the fights to be very grounded – lots of grappling, found-object takedowns a la Bourne or Taken; no slo-mo – and it’s true that the choreography for a couple of the brief scraps isn’t bad, but the unfocused, choppy editing removes any good merit earned by that, and then we’re hustled along back to the plot of newbie CIA field agent Kellan Lutz (ah, but he’s been training for years (two) and so is secretly the best of the best!) going rogue to rescue daddy Willis from some bad guys and stop their nefarious schemes to use ‘The Condor’ to shut down, like, the internet.  Cue some shots of hilarious “code” gobbledygook streaming on a computer screen.  Ex-girlfriend / fellow agent Gina Carano shows up and gets some okay fight scenes and lame dialogue, just like Lutz, so yay for gender diversity and whatever.   Occasionally we’ll stop by the CIA office to play plot catch-up with one guy who just swears about things and another guy – D.B. Sweeney – explaining the things for him to swear about.

The title sequence is overlong but not bad, and the music is repetitive but mostly avoids going super duper generic.  And Miller comes across as an okay guy, aware that he’s filling a very specific VOD need and so using the script and actors and time and money he has to do just that.  But this is about as bare-bones as pics like this come, with any positives more along the lines of “at least they didn’t…” over anything that sticks out as praisable on its own.

Extras on these Lionsgate blu-rays are pretty standard, it seems: Some cut-out footage that’s generally just snippets before or after scenes of extra pauses or looks; a ‘making-of’ which is really just the cast talking summarizing their characters and the plot; interviews, which are extended bits from the making-of; and commentary, this time from Miller and Lutz.  I fell asleep during the interviews and commentary and don’t feel compelled to go back.  In the former, it amounts to generally just talking up the location, the other actors/crew, and Willis, and in the latter, Miller, again, has good awareness of what kind of film he’s doing, but that also means what you see on screen is what you get, so there’s a lot of downtime in the commentary.