Director: Isaac Florentine
Writer: Matt Venne
Stars: Antonio Banderas, Paz Vega, Cristina Serafini
Plot: A fast-talking lawyer transforms his body and takes a vow of silence, not to be broken until he finds out who killed his wife and daughter and has his revenge.
Running Time: 87 Minutes
IMDB Score: 5.7
Why I Watched It: The cast and director.
Random Thoughts: Issac Florentine has made a name for himself in the made for video or On Demand action movies, he’s a cult action director, Undisputed III maybe one of the best made for video action movies ever, let’s just say it’s damn good, he also did two Ninja movies all of these starred Scott Adkins who is not in this one but Florentine has gotten himself Antonio Banderas who has turned himself into a made for video action stars, well sort of just go with it.
What I Liked: I went in really hoping this would be good and some of it is, Banderas is solid here and I think that’s one of the reasons he’s doing so many of these films you look at Bruce Willis who sleep walks through all of his films now and most of the made for on demand are small cameos but Banderas shows up and is committed. Acts Of Vengeance is a pretty straight up revenge film with a who is the killer mystery thrown in as well. The set up is fine and Banderas does a good job of showing a man who has paid for his sins.
The film is crisp at 87 minutes and it moves well, it does take the time to show Banderas go from lawyer to bad ass, we get the training clips. The odd thing is the film does play more of a whodunit than an all out action film.
What I Didn’t Like: The film is boring, and it hurts me to say it but it’s a standard revenge movie with pretty much all the cliches and the thing that hurts about this film is the supporting cast is wasted, Robert Forster is in one scene, Paz Vega is fine but miscast and her sub-plot is beyond cliche the worst part is Karl Urban who plays a cop and a man who does illegal fighting and he’s barely in the film for the first half he’s in two scenes and there was a part in the film where I forgot he was even in it. What his role is of course you can see coming a mile away. As a side note I totally see Scott Adkins in the Urban role, the funny thing is Urban looks beefy in this, just saying but he’s totally wasted in this how do you waste Karl Urban.
This was a disappointment and coming from Florentine I expect much more, the action is alright but the fight scenes are by the numbers there’s no energy to them. I think the film would have been better if Urban was the lead, he could carry a full on action film. In the end it’s not the acting but the script there is nothing new here not one thing and the film is stuck in the middle, the acting is good but this is clearly a B-Movie so it’s not going to be carried on the drama of the situation but the action isn’t good enough to make it either a fun action flick or a bad ass action flick. This should have been better in my eyes they had what they needed the director, cast they just whiffed on the story.
As an endnote here they make a point of the him talking a vow of silence, he just decides not to speak until he gets his family’s killer and he doesn’t do it till over halfway through the film so it’s not a big deal and the fact he says he hears better cause he’s not talking is a reach.
Final Thoughts: It’s watchable and if you like Banderas it’s worth a look for me it was fine I just wanted more.
Rating: 5/10
Movie Burner Entertainment 