Director: Adam Alleca
Writer: Adam Alleca
Stars: Thomas Jane, Laurence Fishburne, John Tench
Plot: Carter (Thomas Jane), a troubled veteran, gets a chance at redemption by protecting a 12 year-old girl from an assassin (Laurence Fishburne) after she witnesses a murder.
Running time: 1 hour 20 minutes
Why I watched it: I’m a Thomas Jane fan and it read well.
Random thoughts: I watch a ton of B-Movies, or straight to DVD titles and the reason I do is hoping I catch a hidden gem, now most times I pick the movies I watch on genre and actors, plots are mostly boring so I go with what I like. Now at first I wasn’t that excited cause Standoff is a boring title, but I will say it does suit the movie, I watched this for Jane and Fishburne. As I wrote above I’m a Thomas Jane fan and think he’s very underrated, he has done some fine genre work.
What I Liked: This one is a little genre gem, I liked the film a lot and the big reason is Jane and Fishurne don’t phone it in they go at each other, and oddly they aren’t face to face for most of the film, but their dynamic and chemistry is very good here. Now the film is mostly one setting and it is a true standoff what I liked and didn’t expect was that the film is pretty smartly written, sure there’s stock characters but they’re smart and the little girl is good here to, sure she’s scared but she just doesn’t cry in the corner. All three characters are fleshed out for this type of film. The intensity is very good here and you feel the stakes. The short running time helps here cause even at 1 hour 20 minutes it does drag a wee bit, you have one setting and really one outcome so they didn’t milk it too bad.
What I didn’t like: Not much really, there’s the one sub plot where there’s a cop figuring things out and of course he shows up and if you’re a movie fan you can pretty well see what’s coming, that was a tad lazy but it ends up being effective. So all and all not to much to complain about.
Final thoughts: A solid genre movie with good performances, I really enjoyed it.
Final rating: 7/10, almost an 8.
Movie Burner Entertainment 