Mini-Review: Bullet To The Head

I'm not even going to say that 'Bullet to the head' could have been a better movie; chances are it probably couldn't have. However if there were cuts made to the dumb explosions and unnecessary nudity I think it might have been a little more admirable.

The action scenes, which really should be the life force of a movie like this, are disappointingly lacking of any sort of flair or bombast. In fact there isn't one action sequence, aside from the enjoyable climactic axe-fight, that I can attest to having enjoyed, perhaps it’s down to the movie's fondness for empty explosions and genre typical shootouts.

The standard for three-dimensional characters in an action movie is low but 'Bullet to the head' takes it to a new depth. Virtually every character feels like a cardboard cutout of the stereotype that they represent, not sure that the character of Kwon is a cop? Don't worry he'll remind you every 15 minutes with his incessant "this is against the law" spiel. Poor characterisation like this pervades the movie and even affects the villain, Keegan, played by Jason Momoa. I quite like Momoa as an actor but damn it if he wasn't screwed here, Keegan appears almost solely as a thug, one that for some reason can't die early in the movie (because he's gonna be in the final fight stupid!), his brutish persona doesn't waver until a last minute change of character that bears no relevance to anything we have learned about him up to that point. Stallone is the only actual enjoyable experience in the cast of dull characters, his performance as Jimmy is notably badass and everything we've come to expect from the aging 'Rocky' star.

An initially interesting idea of a movie (the elimination of various members of a conspiracy) seems to have been neutered to appease a dumb audience, whatever distinction the movie had in its inception is lost in the finished product leaving 'Bullet to the head' as just your basic action flick, it may have one the genre's best leading men but it doesn't have what it takes to be memorable after the credits roll.