User Reviews

Picking out a great line in this film is very difficult. There were a lot of great lines in writer Gary Lennon's directorial debut. These are lines, of course, that you will not likely hear on his TV shows that he writes for.

Besides the lines, you had Milla Jovovich. I don't gravitate towards the tall skinny ones with the itty bitties, but she is hot, and she did a good job as a battered girlfriend. She was incredibly believable after the last incident, and as someone who was definitely in fear for her life.

Lennon's story has her finding a way out of her predicament that was sweet and sneaky. Using her hips, lips, and tits, she conned several people into soling her problem; including Sarah Strange ("Da Vinci's Inquest"), who played a bisexual (mostly lesbian) BFF to Milla that wanted much more, and Aisha Tyler (Charlie from "Friends," and the only reason I ever watched "The Ghost Whisperer"), She was a former battered wife that was now a counselor, and she was also very believable in the role.

Stephen Dorff (Blade) was also good, and I wish him luck in his quest for the impossible dream.

Rich characters! Each character had a life a back story that I got to know enough of about. Usually I'm annoyed by narrative, it takes me out of the movie, but they weren't distracting at all. They were funny and smart and it was a creative way to get insight about the character instead of 'telling' dialog, which can get tedious. Love watching little films with a lot of everything: raw grit, action and heart. Milla was great, never seen her that emotional and focused. This was a 3-d performance for her. Read Gary Lenon's credits- good stuff for a directorial debut. He made efficient choices that tell the story. It's hard to do that the first time around. Didn't know Aisha Tyler was in it, another pleasant surprise. Her performance was subtle. The cast was authentic Big Al owned the role! I really liked this one.

Well, that was a waste of 101 minutes. I never would have known that .45 existed, if not for the presence of Milla Jovovich. That ignorance of this movie, probably would have been to my overall advantage. It's safe to say that I am not a fan. 

.45 is basically an R-rated Lifetime Movie of the Week. The story is a messy mix of domestic violence, crime, revenge, double-crosses, and general pointlessness. I was massively disinterested within the first ten minutes, but I forced myself to watch all of it, because of my misguided aversion to not finishing a movie (unless I absolutely must, ex. Darkness). No one came out of this one looking good, even the pretty Ms. Jovovich. I'm struggling to think of a single redeeming quality...nope. I'm drawing a blank. Even if you're a die-hard fan of Milla, I still could not recommend this. She does have talent, but none of it is on display, here. It's been a few months since I've seen a movie that I enjoyed this little.

While I don't think this is anywhere near the best movie I have ever seen, I think that the character development in the roles played by Milla Jovovich, Angus MacFayden and Sarah Strange were outstanding. Without these performances, the movie would have been predictable and hum-drum. The ancillary commentaries from the two elderly women were also very humorous and added to the movie nicely. I have seen almost everything Milla Jovovich has done (shame on me), and besides "The Messenger", I would rate this as one of her better roles. In fairness, I must say that her role is only strong because of the development of the other main characters. Definitely worth the rental fee!

In a dangerous neighborhood in New York City, Kat (Mila Jovovich) and her brutal smalltime criminal boyfriend Big Al (Angus Macfadyen) sell pistols and revolvers on the streets and deal stolen goods. Kat is addicted in having sex with Al and dreams on moving to the beach and start a new life. When the jealous and abusive Al beats her, the social assistant Liz (Aisha Tyler), Kat's bisexual friend Vic (Sarah Strange) and her acquaintance Reilly (Stephen Dorff) that has a crush on her advise Kat to leave Al. However, Al threatens to destroy her face if she dares to leave him. The smart Kat uses her power of beautiful and sexy woman to manipulate her friends and get rid off Al.

".45" is an amoral and cynical tale of manipulation and use of sex to achieve an objective. The story uses elements of Ken Russell's "Whore", with the characters speaking to the camera like in a documentary. Mila Jovovich and Angus Macfadyen give magnificent performances in the role of amoral losers. I liked a lot this bold movie, but it is recommended for specific audiences. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): ".45 – A Vitória é a Vingança" (".45 – The Victory Is the Vengeance")

Jovovich is a well known actress and this is perhaps the worse unwatchable movie I have ever seen. It is no surprise that it went directly to DVD. It would have never made it in the movie theater even if you tried. I promise you a typical high school thug who likes F word could have written and direct this a lot better and a lot more wholesome. The movie starts of with Jovovich talking about the size of his organ and sex as a shocker, then the movie starts off with her boyfriend selling guns and his jealous fits which leads her being beaten pretty badly. With that incident, she schemed with many people to get back at him and put him to jail. In most typically bad movies, they can be surprisingly funny that makes up for it. But this movie has no redeeming quality, made to look like a bad documentary. It's bad because it doesn't look like a documentary. You have no feelings for any of the characters as they are shallow, lack motivation, with possible exception of the lead actress, and continuing the life of crime is the moral of the story. The story doesn't have a surprise ending, most would have guess fairly close who have done it, since those who didn't denied it, so you are left with the obvious choice. The director and writer should have written children's story before writing this movie, at least they can understand the concept of simplicity and that F words is not needed. The best thing I can say about this movie is the packaging. It has nice DVD cover if Mila Jovovich on it, but I regret that I have bought this movie, perhaps I can make it into a frisbee for my dog to catch.

Fantastic acting -- great plot twists. All the performances are outstanding, but Milla Jovanavich in particular should have been nominated for an Oscar. The fight in the apartment is unforgettable. This is a look at an underbelly of New York you don't often (if ever) see on screen. This is not a glamorized Hollywood look at crime. The characters seem disturbingly real, and the potential for violence to erupt at any moment keeps the movie feeling tense throughout. "Honest" might be the best word to describe the writing and the performances. Very raw and powerful. It will leave you thinking about it for a long time afterward. Highly recommended.

.45 stars Milla Jovovich as Kat, a girl who grows tired of being beaten by her boyfriend, big Al, a gun dealer and low life in general. She finally works up the courage to leave him and befriends Liz(Aisha Tyler), a counselor at a women's shelter.

Another woman, Vic(Sarah Strange) also tries to help Kat and is in love with her in a romantic way.

The final piece of the puzzle is Reilly(Stephen Dorff), another criminal who is a partner of big Al's and like everyone else, lusts for the sexy Kat. He tells her to get revenge on her former lover by killing him.

Kat must make a big decision as to whether or not do away with Al forever or just go along her merry way.

New York City is the backdrop for .45 and it works well, as usual, for a street crime drama. Milla Jovovich is convincing as the gun moll, Kat, and the story is interesting enough for a rating of 7.

Maybe 3 is a little generous, it's a surprise to me that this movie has been so favourably reviewed by some. The director seems mighty uncertain about how to portray the material and ends up with somewhat of a half-baked mess. The humour and straight-to-camera monologues make you cringe, the dialogue if often shouted and is laden with swearing to try and make it all seem 'street'. Milla's performance is good at times but often desperately overplayed, Angus Macfadyen as Big Al gives a crude over-bearing performance with a rather baffling accent.

If you want to see a really realistic film about domestic abuse watch Nil By Mouth and appreciate Ray Winstones raw multi-layered performance, if you want a steamy revenge thriller ( as this tries to be later in the narrative ) pick one out of a guide because,chances are, it'll entertain you better than this. Kudos to Stephen Dorff and Sara Strange who actually manage to inject some humanity into their underwritten roles.

Skin fans who like skinny women might disagree but I found the nudity ( and I like nudity in film- sometimes it's the only thing to keep you awake watching a bad movie) gratuitous and unsexy. It's a bad one, steer clear.

Interesting are comments and rates of this movie, here on IMDb. Mostly very praising or very negative. What makes good movie? Certainly not dull beginning with main actor speaking into camera and admitting that she is with her man because of his organ size. Unfortunately rest of movie is not much better.

I have nothing against when movie displays bad and awful things or talk. Life is not fine and nice for everyone, nor everyone is fine. But in this movie all looked unrealistic, forced - one dimensional.

Especially last half hour was complete unbelievable and stoopid - or just some soft porn? Badly directed - I even did not try to understand what exactly happened. Totally uninterested for characters and forced plot.

Better watch No Good Deed (with same IMDb average rating)if you are Milla without action fan :-)

this is trash.

awful movie.

don't even bother.

bad at everything.

good at nothing.

it's a waste of my time to bother pointing it all out.

too bad my 'review' ends up on the bottom of the pile.

wish i could bump it up to number one in the list just to warn others away from .45.

facts be known, i feel so strongly about how AWFUL this crappy movie is, i went to the trouble to sign up here.

don't believe the others who praise it- probably just a lot of trolls anyway- put up to saying 'great' things about it in either self promotion or they were paid to do it.

this is a crappy movie--- just plain sucks. plastic characters, lousy acting, terrible plot (if there was one), wannabee director copying all the tired old tricks and banal lines trying to shock a viewer into submission. sad. terribly sad and distasteful.

mila hits bottom of barrel. all them others, probably wish they didn't quit their day jobs. lennon needs to go back to whatever thing he did before- this ain't working man. stupid, ridiculous, predictable, blocking in scenes that borders on criminally amateur, laughable and contrite.

at every turn, at every 'important' exchange, it falls on its knees and flounders around. a few witty quippy lines does not make a good script.

we've seen the worst he can do now- is there any hope? he'll have a career of making up for this turd, as will anyone else in it. shameful piece of crap that it is. only good thing to say it is a formidable Back Marker for the worst ever-- bad art is bad art and this is neither --- are there worse words to say. 'bad' seems so ineffectual in a way. and 'art' - don't even go there. pieces of feces on the wall is all.

and, this is me holding my tongue. what i'm thinking is enough to turn your screen afire. it's so bad, you can't even get nightmares from watching it through.

well, now that i think of it, .45 does excel in one area: proves that any jimmy joe with a camera can make a 'movie'. problem is, most of them (like this one) aren't worth watching!

Kat and Big Al run guns. Small-time, really, just the streets of New York. She would like it to get bigger, he's reluctant. Then one day, he beats her, in jealous rage. Not for the first time, but the worst yet. Her smarts, coolness and independence(she could easily run their "business" without him) fly right out the window, in spite of the advice of Vic(a lesbian who also comes onto her), Reilly(a dumb criminal who wants to get out that life… and wants to be with her) and Liz(the social worker assigned to her case). However, she's not done yet. And she can be crafty. Right as this opens, it's vulgar; the strong language(at times explicit) is constant, the plentiful sexuality is unrestrained(complete with a little nudity of both genders), and there is a bit of disturbing, brutal violence(aforementioned fight is shocking and effective, yet because of what follows, it is not gratuitous in its detail). This goes for an uncensored look at the environment and the people, and the grittiness, the uncompromising nature of this makes it all the better for those of us who aren't turned off to it. About halfway through(because this keeps to such a smooth pace, wasting no time), I suddenly realized that not a single one of these types were likable. And it didn't take me long to remember that the same goes for classics in the crime-drama genre; Goodfellas, Casino, and in general Scorsese's films. What makes these work is that the characters are credible, thoroughly established(swiftly, if need be) and in a story you're interested in... and all of those are the case here, as well. The acting is great for all involved. This is one of Milla's best performances(watch this if you like her; granted, she is perhaps a little over-the-top at times), and she is at her most seductive and cute here(no wonder everyone in this falls for her!). Macfadyen(granted, the explanation that he "went to Scotland as a kid and never lost the accent" is stupid), Dorff, Tyler, Strange... everyone is spot-on. The editing is tight, with a lot of hand-held, and several "talk to the camera" interviews by those in this(not only the leads). Dialog tends to be very natural. The humor can be forced once or twice; this may make still you laugh. Love and abuse are important themes in this. There is tension in this. The twists are unexpected, I didn't see the ending coming(what I will say is that I am ecstatic about it). The DVD comes with trailers. I recommend this to anyone who wants to delve into life on the streets. 7/10

It's a hoot! Best enjoyed with a few drinks and some nachos. I laughed till it hurt!

Big Al ("Tell me your'e a whore, tell me you love me,")is classic! Characters like him wander in and out of our lives, getting kicked out of bars at 8am and peeing in garbage cans...

This flick is rife with great one liners and offensive stereotypes. Think Lifetime Originals with 'roid rage.

Mila...bless her heart, but whats up with the scary pointy nipples in every other shot?

On a serious note though, my ears are still ringing with the sounds of Brooklyn accents being tortured and killed.

Based on other user's comments, the raw emotion and grit present throughout this film might be too much for some, but for me it added an entirely new dimension to the story that really helped draw me into the harsh reality that these characters live in.

I was truly impressed with Milla's performance as "Kate" and I was pleasantly surprised to see her outside of a movie laden with kung-fu, guns and monsters and instead see her in a wonderfully directed and extremely well written film.

While I've only seen Angus Macfadyen on screen a handful of times, he completely blew me away as "Big Al". He plays one of the most powerful, controlling and abusive characters I've ever seen on screen, yet he's still very much human.

There's something about Gary Lennon's writing that really helps you understand these characters and the reality they live in, no matter how dysfunctional and messed up they may be.

Overall, .45 is an amazing debut for writer/director Gary Lennon, full of brilliant acting and an enthralling story. Highly recommended!

Can't recommend this film even if it includes a flash of Milla nudity. It's too over-the-top, even for me. Milla's believable as everyone's sexual preference, no matter what their gender, but that sort of scenario is not that interesting if you're not in your twenties or thirties. I particularly disliked the fact that the tease is that there may be some wildly uninhibited gunplay in this film, while the truth is there's barely two gunshots in the entire film. Instead you get a lot of animal goings-on revolving around Big Al (and they mean his genitals) and Kat who have a classic love-hate relationship built around their lust. Angus Macfadyen as Big Al is even more convincing than Milla and this guy clearly enjoys himself no end. There's something worth talking about in all this, but this is a dying, if not already dead, breed.

Milla Jovovich stars as woman who wants revenge on her boyfriend after he beats her up.

Unremarkable crime drama would work on a b-movie level but is sunk by a supporting cast that doesn't seem to be adept at acting. Then again they simply may not care because there really is no real intensity in the lot. The fact that they don't seem to care makes it so we don't care.the result is a film that is not particularly anything, it's just sort of there, like a piece of art that was bought to match a sofa, this was made just to create a pay check. Ultimately the sort of thing you'll forget after ten minutes.

This movie although not without it's merits struggles with identity-issues, at times it appears to be a dark comedy, others a serious drama and occasionally a thriller and it goes back and forth like that in tone without much rhyme or reason.

There is also a bundle of (fake) interviews intertwined between the scenes with some of the characters (and some family members to them) talking about each other in various aspects (the movie starts off by Milla Jovovich's character talking about how big Angus McFayden's character is in his pants in great detail).

It does have some very good scenes separately (as well as some very bad ones) but together they don't always flow that well together, and one struggles to 'like' any of the characters and when you start to 'like' someone it's just because there's another character who's seemingly worse than them not that they are particularly likable or anything.

But yeah overall, if you're a massive Milla Jovovich or Angus McFayden fan I suppose you might like it, Stephen Dorff who was the in-ital drawing point of mine to the movie has about 25 minutes of screen-time (possibly less) and it's not one of his better performances albeit just like the movie not completely terrible.