Bullet To The Head
Sometimes the whole entire point of an action movie is not necessarily to reinvent the wheel but rather instead to remember what the regular components are and bring them up to speed in a fresh new environment. And for that job as director, few are better suited to the task than one Walter Hill, long thought of as being arguably the most underrated innovator in the field with a long string of classics but yet still no Oscar nor any other substantial recognition for his work. This 2012 release that saw Hill at the helm is remarkably something that minus the flash and razzle dazzle camerawork could have been a starring vehicle for somebody like Charles Bronson back in the 1970s. But alas, with Bronson gone, we instead get Sylvester Stallone playing a character at least 15 years younger than his actual age but still proving (as he did in his Expendables films) that he can continue to embody a prototypical action hero well into his 60s. Here he plays a veteran hitman, someone for whom we are shown a series of mugshots from his past (all glamour pics of Stallone going back to his early Rocky days and beyond that even) who has become so jaded from his job that he now merely considers himself a go between from one scumbag to another with the only twist being that he is being paid to kill one of them. One night on a normal excursion with his younger partner in crime (Jon Seda), they encounter a VERY coked up dirty ex cop who proves to be harder to drop than usual and when Stallone checks out the rest of the hotel room, he discovers a beautiful Russian hooker in the shower and instead of killing her (as per protocol), he decides to let her live because of a unique tattoo that she wears on her shoulder, something which we think is going to result in a major plot twist that really amounts to nothing more than being a vague connection and reminder of his tattoo artist daughter (Sarah Shahi). After lying to Seda and telling him that she was taken care of (again not amounting to much in story terms of the hooker having seen his face which is a regrettable flaw for the film), the two head to a nearby bar to have a drink and relax (Stallone is in the habit of carrying his own bottle of his hard to find favorite brand of bourbon and then paying the bartender to ārent the glassā) and when Stallone makes a quick trip to the bathroom, Seda is suddenly ambushed and killed with a knife by a sleek, smooth hired ex mercenary (Jason āAquamanā Momoa) whom it turns out was hired by the same people in order to take out the pair to tie up all loose ends which basically amounts to Stallone and Seda actually having been ādecoyā hitmen of sorts. After barely surviving his own encounter with Momoa, Stallone finds himself breaking one of his own rules by teaming up with a Korean American cop (Sung Kang) who himself has just found out that he is being targeted by looking into this exact same (extremely sensitive) case and was actually ambushed by his own fellow cops in order to cover up for their own dirty involvement, barely surviving before being rescued by Stallone, whose name and face are known by Kang as being a part of whatās going on even as Stallone is just planning on using him as a temporary āreplacement partnerā for the now dead Seda in order to bring down the corrupt power brokers involved. They include a sleazebag lawyer (Christian Slater in a late career role and making the most out of it), a shady criminal / political figure from Africa (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) whoās holding all of the money to buy off cops and politicians and then thereās Momoa himself, the true hired gun of the bad guys whom in the best tradition of movie henchmen turns out to be the REAL lead villain of the film with it being given that even when surrounded by the men of industry and power that he works for, Momoaās Keegan still knows that they CANNOT get the necessary killing done on their own and that even THEY are not safe or susceptible to being taken out if they just so happen to piss him off. Walking around with all of the swagger of a bad guy pro wrestler and having a special propensity for talking shit (especially to Stallone), Momoa just about steals the movie whenever heās on based on sheer presence alone, whether it be in taking on a skinny Asian bystander who comes at him with some ridiculous looking martial arts moves before getting smashed to pieces or in calling Stallone to gleefully tell him that heās got his daughter held hostage, Momoa does the monster action movie bad guy thing just right and the film benefits all the more for it. But the movieās bread and butter is still in the buddy element between Stallone and Sung Kang which much like Hillās 48 Hrs is that of a cop and a criminal teaming up, only here Stallone and his ultra masculine persona easily holds the upper hand as the relatively wimpy in comparison Kang appears to be one of those type of cops who prefers his cell phone to do all of his detective work, usually deferring to Stallone in matters where it appears that violence will have to be involved, but the two do make an interesting team while still keeping the testosterone juices flowing in the same way that Murphy and Nolte did all those years ago. The film actually falters in developing Kangās character and whatever his motivation might be since he appears to be newly arrived in New Orleans (the filmās primary location) from what appears to be Washington D.C. (hence his unfamiliarity with the dirty local cops trying to kill him) where heās been assigned to the case since the origins of this whole thing can trace its roots back there (and he doesnāt appear to be FBI or any kind of a Fed either) and possibly even involve major political figures up on Capitol Hill. But other than that and his Dudley Do Right attitude where he constantly tells Stallone that sooner or later heās going to have to bring him to justice (which Stallone always laughs off and rightfully so), there really doesnāt seem to be much in the way of motivation for his character (whereas Stallone in comparison has buckets of motivation). Nonetheless, the two of them keep soldiering on, going from Point A to Point B to Point C, stopping for a bit at the home of Shahi as Stalloneās daughter (weāre told that she did a year in medical school so sheās recruited to patch up the injured Asian cop) and eventually scooping up Slater so that a confession can be obtained (beaten) out of him before the final confrontation with the African moneymen and Momoa, whose overconfidence and ego overwhelm him so much that he actually challenges Stallone to fight it out with him using axes, but fortunately Sly is still up to the task of having a knock down drag out with a (much) younger opponent. The film itself is sleekly paced with not an ounce of fat on it albeit at the cost of the aforementioned character development and that can most likely be attributed to Hill, never one to allow his films to drag on for too long. As Hill himself would later admit, the storyline here really wasnāt all that super original (and the final scene hints slightly at a sequel that would obviously never happen), but it was in the presentation of the usual elements that the artistic integrity would somehow be maintained and for those wondering, the filmās title would turn out to be something of a motif for the film itself, with nearly every death scene featuring that type of fate for the unlucky ones involved. As said, the script and story for this film could very well have been done in the hardcore 1970s and maybe itās that lack of a fresh dynamic that winds up hurting it the most, the insignificance of something that doesnāt strive to be anything more than just an enjoyable time waster, albeit one that accomplishes that purpose very wellā¦
7/10