It's difficult to find a good starting point when it comes to this movie. As the author of the second review explains, the very beginning of the movie may have held some promise but the rest sure did not deliver anything better; it was all downhill indeed. I was amazed at the poor quality of the fight scenes, considering Bautista has the experience to deliver good fight sequences and has done so in the past. That can only mean one thing: production, editing and direction sucked. Okay, the script was as lame as the fight scenes; I would describe it as assembly line output writing or cookie cutter prose. In other words, the script also sucked.
The pace of the movie is off; not fast enough when it ought to and chaotic when smooth is needed. If the director was a drummer in a band, the rest of the band would be better off with a "Sideman" (a.k.a. electronic drum/sequencer) and they'd kick him out the band.
The cast had enough talent and experience to deliver what the production and direction would have asked, had the directors ask for the right things. Bautista is not quite ready to do dramatic scenes, yet it seems the directors (there were two no less) were determine to squeeze that ought of him. I'll bet Bautista could have directed and co-edited the fight scenes and produced better ones.
Finally, Amy Smart was given another mediocre script; and again she did not pass it up. Aside from her amazing good looks, she can act the hell out of a part when it's a well written one; take for instance her role as Tracy Faucet in "The Rat Race (2001)", to name one that she can be very proud of. The whole cast was presumably given a script to read before accepting their parts; so all should share the blame for the poor result, unless of course the re-writes killed whatever life might have existed in the original version.
The pace of the movie is off; not fast enough when it ought to and chaotic when smooth is needed. If the director was a drummer in a band, the rest of the band would be better off with a "Sideman" (a.k.a. electronic drum/sequencer) and they'd kick him out the band.
The cast had enough talent and experience to deliver what the production and direction would have asked, had the directors ask for the right things. Bautista is not quite ready to do dramatic scenes, yet it seems the directors (there were two no less) were determine to squeeze that ought of him. I'll bet Bautista could have directed and co-edited the fight scenes and produced better ones.
Finally, Amy Smart was given another mediocre script; and again she did not pass it up. Aside from her amazing good looks, she can act the hell out of a part when it's a well written one; take for instance her role as Tracy Faucet in "The Rat Race (2001)", to name one that she can be very proud of. The whole cast was presumably given a script to read before accepting their parts; so all should share the blame for the poor result, unless of course the re-writes killed whatever life might have existed in the original version.