1 out of 5

Directed by: Brian A. Miller

Was there a movie here?  After multiple scenes of… nothing, of Frank Grillo being depressed after a shooting at his job, of Jonathan Schaech stomping around and plotting, I looked at the clock, and noted that by the midway point, all we’ve pretty much gotten is setup: that shooting; Grillo grousing to his next door neighbor Bruce Wills that he should’ve done something; Schaech shooting guns during elaborate planning sequences that play out in actuality as “shoot people, steal money.”  There are clear “this will come up later” asides to Grillo’s daughter being diabetic; to Bruce’s ex-cop standing; but both of those details come during that setup as well.

These low budget, Emmett / Furla productions are rarely that great, but this was a new low in terms of disguising lack of plot in order to put some action and billable stars on the screen.  Director Brain A. Miller is an old hand at this stuff, at this point, and handles it in an appreciably straight-forward manner, and I’ll credit the driving and gunplay sequences as being well effected for the budget, but these are also drawn out to fill screentime, and can’t do much beyond a few 180 turns and squibs.

Bruce’s first couple of scenes are painful, like he just read his lines a moment before waking up for his day on set, but later on when he’s called to back up Grillo to take down Schaech, he gets a little more invested.  Still, I recently rewatched some 90s Bruce flicks, and it’s so sad he doesn’t truly get motivated any more.

I’m spending too many words on this at this point, but the core conceit of average man Grillo versus specialist Schaech also damns the film: the how and why of his involvement later on is hilariously questionable – it’s not a case of someone getting dragged in to things so much as, like, he forgets to call the cops – and so the script does its best to avoid that leap in logic by having Frank mostly observe things from afar.

The extras on the bluray are at least amusing for Grillo’s interview, because he very clearly knew what kind of movie this was, but speaks to it while still coming across as a good guy.