This film was so bad in so many ways, it wouldn't be fair on me or you to list them all. It's not bad because that no-one has yet convinced Danny Dyer that he really is NOT a cockney hard man...or the desperately limited acting skills - Vinny Jones & Jason Statham have overcome these to break into lucrative Hollywood film roles. What starts out as a Ronseal (does what it says on the tin) revenge thriller, albeit one that has gone for the most rent-a-mob stock pile of 'gangsters' seen this side of the 1960's Batman show soon degenerates into sound-bite sized pockets of letters written to the Daily Mail masquerading as character development.
The soft lit 'emotional' scenes showing how a psycho who has been leaving a trail of corpses can win back the love of his life by getting his frankly flabby & out of shape torso out & justifying the massacre going on as he had had a bad time of it torturing & killing people in Afghanistan was the first real sign that things were going really awry.
It was around now that the writers realised that even though they had tried to go the Death Wish route, it needed something else...and that was to just lift entire plot points & scenes from other films picked at random...the 50/50 chain ripper (The Hitcher), random Colonel appearing to call back in 'his boy' (Rambo) but then it not only jumps the shark but clears it high and mighty by adding in the suggestion that this super soldier is so important that when bullying the cops doesn't work directly, senior ministers are willing to intervene and demand that he not be arrested, despite that he still has another couple of people to get through...
The Police are portrayed as lazy, dispirited, cynical morons who it seems have been craving a psychopath to come and mete out justice for them, one of whom is not only stupid enough to access files of suspects & then brag about it to a superior officer when busted but then walks away free to set up the final slap in the face at the end.
I'm sorry but I did end up ranting more than I intended & will shorten this in the future but I really needed that cathartic rant! Phew....
The soft lit 'emotional' scenes showing how a psycho who has been leaving a trail of corpses can win back the love of his life by getting his frankly flabby & out of shape torso out & justifying the massacre going on as he had had a bad time of it torturing & killing people in Afghanistan was the first real sign that things were going really awry.
It was around now that the writers realised that even though they had tried to go the Death Wish route, it needed something else...and that was to just lift entire plot points & scenes from other films picked at random...the 50/50 chain ripper (The Hitcher), random Colonel appearing to call back in 'his boy' (Rambo) but then it not only jumps the shark but clears it high and mighty by adding in the suggestion that this super soldier is so important that when bullying the cops doesn't work directly, senior ministers are willing to intervene and demand that he not be arrested, despite that he still has another couple of people to get through...
The Police are portrayed as lazy, dispirited, cynical morons who it seems have been craving a psychopath to come and mete out justice for them, one of whom is not only stupid enough to access files of suspects & then brag about it to a superior officer when busted but then walks away free to set up the final slap in the face at the end.
I'm sorry but I did end up ranting more than I intended & will shorten this in the future but I really needed that cathartic rant! Phew....