To escape his violent past as an undercover agent, single dad Phil (Statham) takes his daughter (Vidovic) to live in the Louisiana bayou. But he struggles to fit in with locals who are wary of outsiders, sparking a feud with a local woman (Bosworth) who resents his apparent wealth. She asks her low-level gangster brother Gator (Franco) for some help, and he miraculously discovers Phil's past, then enlists his friend Sheryl (Ryder) to contact Phil's old enemies. A bloodbath is imminent. But of course no one accounts for Phil's super-human fighting skills.

It's a shame that Stallone's script is so feeble, because Fleder directs the film with considerable style and pace, and the cast is hugely watchable. This isn't much of a stretch for Statham, but he adds some texture in his father-daughter scenes (a romance with a teacher, played by Lefevre, is so tentative that it's almost not there). Bosworth and Ryder find intriguing complexities in their roles, which begin as one-note cliches but develop other sides as the chaos progresses.

But it's Franco who gets the most to do as an unusually thoughtful villain. Gator actually considers the situation before he acts and wonders if maybe he's doing the wrong thing here. This adds a level of reflection we rarely see in movies like this. Although the rest of the plot is so bloodthirsty that it doesn't really matter: everything still simplistically surges to a series of super-violent set-pieces.

Aside from the gaping plot holes and contrived series of events, this film does have a certain guilty pleasure quality, due to the solid cast and the high-quality production values. Fortunately, Fleder hedges the grisly killings so we're unsure exactly what's happened. But as with other scripts by Stallone, the warped message is that sometimes hideous brutality is required to restore peace. Which of course never works. For example, Phil's daughter would be scarred for life watching her father brutally kill every goon he encounters.

themes, language, violence, sexuality

6.Nov.13