Saturday, February 2, 2013

Bullet to the Head - 1 smile


Well, Sylvester Stallone looks better than Arnold Schwarzenegger and his acting (if you can call it that) is better. And the final fight scene (against a much younger villain) is a bit more believable. Just a bit. But Schwarzenegger’s movie, ‘The Last Stand’ doesn’t take itself that seriously and Stallone’s “Bullet to the Head,” reminiscent of his 80s hard action flicks, is dead serious. Stallone plays the unfortunately named Jimmy Bobo, a New Orleans-based assassin for hire finishing up a hit on an ex-cop when his partner (Jon Seda) is killed in a double cross. Bobo looks for the reason why alongside a D.C. detective, Taylor Kwon (Sung Kang), following leads of his own. Their search unearths a weasel (Christian Slater) buying congressional votes, a crook (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) with big real estate plans, a thug (Jason Momoa) and lots of crooked New Orleans cops. When Bobo and Kwon team up, lots of bullets end up in a lot of heads. The body count is high.

There’s also a recurring motif of the huge amount of info Kang is able to call up from his mobile phone, some stupid racial jokes and the final showdown between Sly and Momoa fighting each other with axes. Axes! Well, that’s different. The movie for the most part, however, seems to be a holdover from days gone by. It isn’t retro and it isn’t good. 2/2/13

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