A Day to Die
VERTICALAction fans will count their lucky stars, all three of them, in A Day to Die. Bruce Willis “features” alongside Kevin Dillon and Frank Grillo, a trio whose prowess within the genre of straight-to-VOD moviemaking is as worrying as it is impressive. Never forget that the frustration of this genre stems, primarily, from incompetence. Wes Miller assembles this hostage-like mess, where the real hostage is the audience and the perpetrator is ineptitude. A Day to Die does itself no favours with a title that sounds like a James Bond reject, but it does much in the way of providing Willis with another role that doesn’t require him to speak. Just sit there and look cool. He can’t do that anymore, but is not the worst draw of this horrendous action flick.
Dillon’s embarrassing opening performance is slotted uncomfortably into a series of bizarre editing choices and emotionally wrought styles. Piano keys are slapped over the sounds of commotion, LSD filters more commonly associated with the front of Tom Wolfe’s classic The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test greet the opening credits where, surprisingly, Willis appears. It is not like him to show up before the halfway mark, but a change of heart and a change of quality see him show up as a commissioner whose stern look and dishevelled beard indicate he had been woken up a few minutes before the quick costume fitting. Miller directs this feature with a stunning level of clumsiness. It is inspiring to see someone as generic as this direct a feature that offers absolutely nothing of note aside from the asinine choices it makes.
Why these soldiers sing before heading into a dangerous situation, why they are armed with rocket-propelled grenades in what must be a very delicate hostage rescue operation – these are never answered. It is that desire and needs to showcase explosions as Willis is cut in-between pursing his lips as if the explosions around them are novel issues rather than impactful choices. At least the action is competent and surprisingly decent. It’d be tolerable if it weren’t for Miller’s style. Style doesn’t feel like the right word there. A Day to Die does not have style, it does not have the functional structure of any film wanting to hook its audience with a competent story or interesting talking point. It hopes its low budget explosions and highly billed cast will be enough to sucker in enough people to cover the overheads.
Who makes these films? How do they manage it so frequently? Why do they do it? Just some of the questions audiences should approach themselves with after viewing A Day to Die, a decaying bit of cinema that strikes close to the heart of everything wrong with copy-paste moviemaking. Solidly horrible at the best of times, a lifeless action flick that cannot hold itself together. The cheap quality and production value that relies on the overexposed, faded star of yesteryear is the one trick these films will always have. Whether it’s John Cusack in Pursuit, Nicolas Cage in Jiu Jitsu or Bruce Willis in anything after 2013, there will always be a place for the snooze-fest action romp. Where that is, is unknowable.