Vendetta
VERTICALSome comfort can be found in Vendetta, more for who it throws up than its overall quality. The last hurrah for Bruce Willis in the most unconvincing of fashion, but another bit of litter for his filmography. Since the Die Hard legend announced his retirement from acting, four more features with his name on them have been released. The man cannot be stopped. But director Jared Cohn, who marks his 45th credited film overall and second with Willis, seems to have learned absolutely nothing while behind the camera. A worrying development for the brains behind Fast and Fierce: Death Race with DMX, but not a surprising development.
It is the lack of specifics that makes this sub-genre of action so peculiar. Crisp American families are shown in the front yard, throwing balls with the family and shouting whenever they make a good throw. An American flag draped in the background and a very unspecific, boring version of the American Dream come to fruition. It is there to provide anguish for when that walk of life is eventually extinguished, but neither before nor after the point of no return is particularly interesting. What is interesting is just how jarring Cohn’s direction is. He splits away from the lacklustre days of family living right to a basement beatdown where Willis shoots someone almost immediately.
But Willis fans rejoice, he is given more than a few things to do here. He talks, he shoots, he sits around looking like a legend of the genre. That is all Willis needs to do in these projects, and, like Midnight in the Switchgrass, he does well here. Vendetta is vaguely palatable during those moments but they do not last for long. That’s inevitable. What matters is that the scenes that surround a surprisingly decent Willis supporting role, a borderline cameo, are strong enough to hold their own. Thomas Jane and Mike Tyson offer varying degrees of quality alongside leading man Clive Standen. Hopes and dreams are dashed, daughters are kidnapped and slow-motion shots are overused. A classic of the modern action, but not something audiences should be happy with.
All over the place at the best of times, Vendetta may be best viewed as a piece of educational material. Hardline techno music and car chases are not always successful, it turns out. Keeping a camera steady appears to be optional for Cohn, who uses the usual suspects to try out another simple storyline that could have had something going for it if the technical merits were up to scratch. A bunch of nobodies are buoyed by Jane, Willis and Tyson about as well as can be expected for a film whose only selling point is found on its poster. One character has a pipe and, impressively, holds onto it for most of the final shootout. That reason alone makes Vendetta an interesting watch, especially when Tyson starts hitting people over the head with a pistol rather than firing it. Fascinatingly poor story writing, an active mess that comes together through sheer disregard for logic.