Plot
The murder of Tsui, a high powered figure in the Asian underworld, and the robbery of a drug heist culminates in a ‘not so clean’ cop Patrick Walker, trying to do the right thing and bring out justice.
He must try to clear the name of Mayoral candidate Laurence Beaumont’s son Charlie, as Charlie was there when Tsui was murdered by a group of masked bandits.
Now with Tsui’s mother, the cold and calculated killer herself in pursuit of Charlie – it is up to Walker to get to the bottom of who is responsible for Tsui’s murder.
Director
Directed by Gareth Evans, this is the first film I have watched of his. (Not to be confused with Godzilla Director Gareth Edwards). Cinematography by Matt Flannery.
Cast
Tom Hardy plays Walker, putting on his ‘best’ American accent.
Jessie Mei Li plays Ellie, his rookie cop partner, caught in the middle of the chaos. While the ‘new partner’ is a little cliche, she brings out the big guns… quite literally in the third act.
Justin Cornwell plays Charlie Beaumont.
Timothy Olyphant plays Vincent, Walker’s superior who has some dark history with him.
Forest Whitaker plays Beaumont.
There are also many many other cast and characters… more on that in Breakdown.
Breakdown
In this Christmas adjacent movie (because we need to know our ‘hero’ is a cliche absent father who buys his kids gifts from a pawn shop) we are introduced to Walker, with Hardy doing his best… something accent… that feels like it chops and changes throughout.
Following a (I’ll admit it, very cool) cop car/truck chase that ends with one of the cops gravely injured, we cut to the truck thieves delivering their payload to Tsui (who was going to be’ cool big bad).
This is before they are ambushed by a trio of masked vigilantes who plow through the room with assault rifles, leaving the not so big bad dead, and the truck thieves on the run (and being blamed for the deaths by everyone, including the cops and the kids mother).
The next hour or so of the films runtime, we have; Walker, actually showing he’s a good cop (whose been naughty in the past through a series of non linear flashbacks) as he attempts to bring mayor hopeful Whitakers son (one of the thieves) in safely as… Tsui’s mum arrives and goes on a revenge warpath for sons murder, not realising it was her little brother who orchestrated it.
There is a stacked cast of nobody characters who are just cannon fodder, and some names that as soon as they show up on screen, you know that they are going to be the bad guy. (And they never get their comeuppance from the right person either!).
With all these characters, there are very few you actually like and want to make it through to the end. Ellie is probably the only one who I could really stand, as she was the only one without a crooked backstory.
There are some ‘okay’ ish moments that are shown that add to the characters (like Walkers ability to ‘see’ the shootout) that are abandoned.
There are also moments that should not have been included that are also abandoned (why did the Dr kill the witness after Walker interrogated him???)
The revenge arc, and the brutality that Tsui’s mother has is actually a solid part of the film. She is played by Yao Yann Yann a Malaysian actress. You somewhat want her to be successful in her plan. I would have loved a ‘Mother/Vincent’ showdown.
I thought the score by Aria Prayogi – while overused and somewhat egregious was quite pretty, and nice to listen to.
While filmed in Cardiff Bay Wales, it has a great look and feel of an almost Dystopian city that has been overruled by corruption and ‘let go’ by the government. This is another very good detail made by the filmmakers.
In a movie that is so long (107m) – we needed a little more on the back story of Walker and Vincent and how Walker is ‘dirty but wanted to go clean’. There is also some confusion that Vincent et al, were able to get from the crash of their friend, to the shoot out in no time at all…
There are some ups and downs in the choreography in the shootouts. While some of them (the night club sequence) feels like it could come straight from a John Wick film, the rest of the film has such stupidity in the amount of plot armor the characters have with the countless machine gun fire at them they are able to dodge.
There is also completely unrealistic use of guns (not once in the hundreds of thousands of bullets shot was there one reload), there is also over shooting bad guys (in slow motion just to amp up the gore factor are just gratuitous) and even a sacrificial death thrown in for good measure that is more laughable than profound.
prolonged gun battle and people getting shot are just gratuitous
Overall
For a film that wants to be serious… you can never really take this serious.
With no real likable characters, a rather confusing back story on Walker/Vincent – a weak motive on the crooked cops, some truly laughable action with way too much plot armor and shockingly bad ‘heroic sacrifice’ – this just didn’t work as a whole.
Even for a film that you don’t need to think about while watching, this makes you think too much.
2/5
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Ryan's Movie Reviews 