A Man Apart

I'm writing this as one of those "public advisory" notices. This film is terrible.

The opening story is as cliched as you could imagine. US drug enforcement agents raiding a Mexico club to capture a kingpin, who has evaded capture on countless occasions. Just when it looks like the kingpin will get away yet again, one cop goes above and beyond to bring him down. Kingpin swears his revenge.

Cut to cop back home with wife, and without so much as a gratuitous sex scene, they're in bed late at night when a prowler breaks in. Cop kills prowler but his wife is killed in the gun fight.

The cop suspects the kingpin, and goes out for revenge, but the kingpin says "It wern't me, guv'na." or he would have done if he'd been from London. Kingpin then persuades the cop that it was the new boy "Diablo" what done the deed. Diablo is currently taking over the kingpin's territories while kingpin's in jail, but the kingpin assures the cop that this fact is completely unrelated.

So far, so Steven Segal movie. But there's a twist. Can you guess what it is yet?

This film would have been great, if it were not for the man playing the lead, one Vincent Diesel. The role calls for great emotion, subtle wordplay, quiet menace as well as some action pieces. Unfortunately, Vincent seems only capable of either:

• All out action, ala "You ****ing killed my wife, you ****ing mother ****er!"
• The puppy dog eye thing he does.

To quote one of my lady friends on the matter: "As an actor, he has the emotional range of a wet sponge."

The ending sucks worse than Mission to Mars, which in itself makes this a bad film hall of fame nominee.

Score: D- Saved from an E score only by some of the action pieces, which are quite good.

OQ:
Sean: [referring to his wife's grave] Who picked the stone?
Demetrius Hicks: We all did.
Sean: She would've liked that.

KOQ: (The Kevin Obligatory Quote) Yeah, I think what she would've liked most is not to get shot...