This turkey of an action flick kills anything that moves including the careers of some established actors. The screenplay for this mindless mayhem is horrendous, and one can only wonder what kind of blackmail was used to get Costner and Russell to agree to appear. The story isn't just weak, it is absurd. The dialogue is nauseatingly bad. Most B movie producers would have burned this script after reading about five pages. How it managed to procure a $62 million budget is a wonder of modern filmmaking.
Writer/Director/Producer Demian Lichtenstein seems so intent on presenting graphically violent images without regard to plausibility that he completely incinerates any vestige of credibility the screenplay might have contained. Lichtenstein shows promise with some effective camera work and generally good cinematography, but these skills without the slightest understanding of storytelling technique, continuity and actor direction make him better suited to be shooting commercials. The music by George Clinton is awful, again below B movie standards.
The acting is mediocre, although even brilliant performances would have been wasted on this script. Kevin Costner, a paragon of good guy roles, attempts to play a badder-than-bad super sociopath, and while it is a decent performance, the character is so one dimensional that it allows for no nuance. This combined with Costner's having to force himself to overcome his naturally nice demeanor makes the character extremely unbelievable.
Kurt Russell doesn't fare much better. He does his best to portray his character as a hard boiled criminal with a soft heart, but comes off as too much of a sap, doing obviously stupid things repeatedly because he can't resist the charms of the scheming Cybil (Courtney Cox) and her underhanded kid (David Kaye). Christian Slater, David Arquette, Jon Lovitz, and Ice-T are thrown in just to beef up the celebrity body count.
This film is a dreadfully violent massacre of celluloid, with a story so brainless and unbelievable that it insults all but the most Neanderthal of viewers. I rated it a 3/10. Let this one gather dust on the rental shelves.
Writer/Director/Producer Demian Lichtenstein seems so intent on presenting graphically violent images without regard to plausibility that he completely incinerates any vestige of credibility the screenplay might have contained. Lichtenstein shows promise with some effective camera work and generally good cinematography, but these skills without the slightest understanding of storytelling technique, continuity and actor direction make him better suited to be shooting commercials. The music by George Clinton is awful, again below B movie standards.
The acting is mediocre, although even brilliant performances would have been wasted on this script. Kevin Costner, a paragon of good guy roles, attempts to play a badder-than-bad super sociopath, and while it is a decent performance, the character is so one dimensional that it allows for no nuance. This combined with Costner's having to force himself to overcome his naturally nice demeanor makes the character extremely unbelievable.
Kurt Russell doesn't fare much better. He does his best to portray his character as a hard boiled criminal with a soft heart, but comes off as too much of a sap, doing obviously stupid things repeatedly because he can't resist the charms of the scheming Cybil (Courtney Cox) and her underhanded kid (David Kaye). Christian Slater, David Arquette, Jon Lovitz, and Ice-T are thrown in just to beef up the celebrity body count.
This film is a dreadfully violent massacre of celluloid, with a story so brainless and unbelievable that it insults all but the most Neanderthal of viewers. I rated it a 3/10. Let this one gather dust on the rental shelves.