Strictly by the numbers action piece in the vengeful cop genre. Diesel is an ex-gang thug who now works a cop. After taking down a big crime boss, his wife gets murdered and Diesel goes out looking for whoever did it.
This is one of the things that bothers me. Diesel doesn't really know who's behind the hit (nor does the audience), so what follows is basically watching Diesel going round asking questions, seemingly at random, stumbling upon clues that make little sense. It's like the screenplay wasn't quite finished, so they made up scenes as they went along. The result is long stretches of pointless talking, with random shootouts every now and then.
There's nothing spectacular about anything that happens, or concerning the film's look in general. Moreover, it's hard to sympathize with Diesel's character when he himself doesn't seem to care about the safety of those around him. The films mixes violent action scenes with broad comedy in a way that simply doesn't work.
The story just unfolds without explaining what's going on. The ending, for example, just happens, and doesn't feel like it belongs to the rest of the film at all. Diesel's acting skills come up short, as does most others as well to be fair. Only Timothy Oliphant seems to be having a good time, and he's really the only thing worth watching. [1/10]
This is one of the things that bothers me. Diesel doesn't really know who's behind the hit (nor does the audience), so what follows is basically watching Diesel going round asking questions, seemingly at random, stumbling upon clues that make little sense. It's like the screenplay wasn't quite finished, so they made up scenes as they went along. The result is long stretches of pointless talking, with random shootouts every now and then.
There's nothing spectacular about anything that happens, or concerning the film's look in general. Moreover, it's hard to sympathize with Diesel's character when he himself doesn't seem to care about the safety of those around him. The films mixes violent action scenes with broad comedy in a way that simply doesn't work.
The story just unfolds without explaining what's going on. The ending, for example, just happens, and doesn't feel like it belongs to the rest of the film at all. Diesel's acting skills come up short, as does most others as well to be fair. Only Timothy Oliphant seems to be having a good time, and he's really the only thing worth watching. [1/10]