2 out of 5

Directed by: Max Adams

As far as these Lionsgate post 00’s Bruce Willis projects go: 90% are essentially shite, 8% are shite with minor exceptions, and 2% – of which Precious Cargo is included – aren’t bad.  They are, at least, on par with the actor’s DTV stuff from the 90s, although he’s no longer the “star,” he’s the headliner, who gets to do his scenes over a minimal amount of hours and, for better or worse, with little actual consideration for his casting beyond that.  Meaning these things are organized, Willis has a Lionsgate deal, and so he’s slotted in.  People are ragging on his phoned in performances, and they are, but the scripts don’t ask for much more than that.  And in Cargo, he’s in it for longer than a few minutes and the movie – and Bruce’s role – actually goes a bit outside of the generic template here and there.  But there’s some misguided abusive dialogue scattered throughout that ultimately ended up dragging down my opinion of what’s otherwise an entertaining popcorn flick.

Mark-Pal Gosselaar is a low-rent thief, planning “safe” gigs alongside sniper partner Jenna B. Kelly, who has an interesting but compelling flat delivery to her lines, all the more entertaining if you’re doing the Willis circuit and just saw her bubble-headed blonde turn in Extraction.  Things are going sort of okay until ex-girlfriend Claire Forlani – pregnant “it’s yours” belly in tow – comes back in, bursting with, of course, the ‘one last score.’  That unfortunately involves stealing from big bad heavy Bruce Willis and his goons.  Cue getting a team together, some twisty turny heists, banter, car chases, and final showdowns.

No, it’s not a mind-blowing flick, nor does it take any overall steps that you aren’t expecting.  But it does what it sets out to do, and thanks to actually having a writer / director i.e. a vision and not just work-for-hire, it doesn’t feel as blatantly empty as a lot of these projects do.  It also comes out in the extras that Max Adams has a combat background, so there’s an undercurrent of legitimacy to the ex-whatever teammates and their contextual believable handling of the heists – nothing Ocean’s 11, just some distractions and skills and explosions; even if that legitimacy is fake, it, again, adds a bit extra to the film.  Same goes for the stuntwork, which is a lot of actors-in-frame stuff, and the well-allotted budget, and the thank-god-it’s-not-Zack-Snyder-desaturated DP work.

Quality DTV.

But.

I’m not really sure where some isolated moments of abusive dialogue directed at (or indirectly directed at) women comes from.  The main two female leads are mostly written on par with the males (that is to say: there’s not much character depth on either side of the gender divide, and everyone gets a fair shot of the action), but one scene of a bad guy berating some swimsuit-clad extras feels purposefully excessive and crass, and another scene establishing one of the teammates’ relationship with his wife is similar.  This stacks up to a concluding sequence with one side character that just sort of justifies the “good girls love a wild guy” thing, and some post-credits oddness that just sprinkles some further ignorance onto things.  I hate over-analyzing gender in stuff that’s clearly meant for a particular demographic, but it’s also distracting when moments like these seem added on top of the rest of the film.  And so Precious Cargo’s punishment is to be a two-star review.

The blu-ray includes the usual Lionsgate making of / interviews, which double up on the same footage.