BEFORE: I'm trying to work sort of thematically here, and to not just go by the linking - apparently a bank heist figures in to this film as well, so let me knock this one out and then move on to another topic, I think kidnapping is coming up next.
Bruce Willis carries over from "Reprisal" - and so do four other actors, what exactly is going on here?
THE PLOT: A Wall Street broker is forced to evade a police officer investigating a bank robbery as he attempts to recover the stolen money in exchange for his son's life.
AFTER: "First Kill" was shot in Granville and Columbus, Ohio and released in 2017 - while yesterday's film was shot in Cincinnati and released in 2018. This gives me some insight, perhaps, into the logistics of filmmaking - as in, what is Bruce Willis's filming schedule like? He's been in about four or five released movies pretty consistently lately, the guy's really never stopped working, and as a result, he's coming close to challenging Samuel L. Jackson for most appearances overall out of my over 4,000 films watched. (It's really tough to calculate this, due to the way that the IMDB treats cameo appearances and archive footage, which is to day, they don't count at all. To me, everything should count.)
This is what I like to think about, the logistics of filmmaking - how many days a year does Bruce Willis work? Does he go out on tour, like a rock star, just going wherever the gig is? What was the motivation to go film in Ohio, twice? Did he fly back to L.A. in between or were the shoots done together, so he could just travel from Columbus to Cincinnati, and did he still have to change planes in Atlanta? Or did he drive between the two cities, and carpool with the four other actors who were in both films? I guess only his personal assistant knows.
What's really going on here, it turns out, is that there's a production company that makes a LOT of low- to mid-budget action films, and they've probably got Bruce Willis signed to a multi-picture deal, or he just likes working with them so he does it again and again. This company is called Emmett/Furla Oasis, or EFO Films, and they've produced a ton of films, like "16 Blocks", "End of Watch", "Alex Cross", "88 Minutes" and "Righteous Kill" - along with most of my programming for the week, "Boss Level" and four films with Bruce Willis in this chain, and the "Escape Plan" sequels I've got scheduled at the end of the month. So I'm guessing that a bunch of these films had the same distributor, and they all got licensed to Netflix at once, as some kind of package deal.
The plot here concerns the aftermath of a bank robbery, where the robbers are meeting and discussing how to split the money, and of course since this is middle America, these are meetings they have out in the woods, not in some office or diner booth. And these tend to be the kind of meetings that only one party walks away from. Into this mix stumbles a Wall Street broker, taking his young son back to where he grew up, to teach him how to hunt deer. The son has repeatedly been bullied at school, and I have to point out that wanting to bond with him in this case is fine, but taking him out to hunt deer is a terrible idea. It's just not a solution to the current problem, and is more likely to turn the kid into the next school shooter or even the next Jeffrey Dahmer. Just saying. Maybe karate lessons would be more appropriate?
Anyway, the father and the son (who hunt in the rain for some reason, I'd pack it in if I were them...) end up in the wrong place at the wrong time, and see a man get shot in this dispute over the bank money. The father then kills the other man (in self-defense) only to learn that he might be a cop. He saves the life of the first guy (the broker's wife just happens to be a surgeon, trained in trauma/ER medicine) and is rewarded for his efforts when his son is taken hostage, and he's now required to find a lost key, pick up the bag of money and deliver it in exchange.
I won't say it's all been done before, because I don't think that is has, but something feels very familiar about the way this guy is drawn into a situation that keeps getting worse, no matter what he does, and it's not even his fault. I feel like some screenwriter's just playing a game of "Action Movie Mad-Libs", because there's so much overlap here with "Marauders" and "First Kill", to name just a few. "The motivation for this (type of criminal) comes from a sick (name of family member) who's dying from (name of terminal disease) which forces him to kidnap (son or daughter) of a (name of more normal profession)."
I'm not saying this is a terrible film, but if it feels like it was filmed in just two weeks, that's because it was. Again, it seems that Bruce Willis is a very busy man, but if you can get Bruce Willis for your movie, you should definitely get Bruce Willis for your movie. However, you won't have the luxury of shooting in sequence, you'll probably have to shoot all of his scenes together, over the course of just two or three days, because he's got other places to be and other action movies to appear in. I should also note that this film is available for FREE (with ads) on imdb.tv, which is also accessible through AmazonPrime. We all know now, the best films are the ones you have to pay for, and this one is free, so don't expect too much.
What's missing here? I suppose there should be a scene at the end that demonstrates to us that little Danny's bullying problem is now solved, because that was the whole point of taking him hunting in the first place. OK, so the hunting trip was a bust, and the family ended up getting involved with a bunch of criminals and having to fight for their lives - BUT, Danny got some good advice from the guy who held him hostage and let him play violent video games, so why can't we see if the weekend had the desired effect? If would be like if "Back to the Future III" didn't show us Marty McFly avoiding his car accident at the end by refusing to drag-race, we'd end up feeling like the whole adventure was pointless. Right?
NITPICK POINT: This film features the (destined to be) classic line: "I'll wait for dark, then I'll go look for the key then..." Umm, great plan, genius, but how are you going to FIND the key in the dark?
Also starring Hayden Christensen (last seen in "The Virgin Suicides"), Ty Shelton, Megan Leonard (last seen in "Aftermath"), Gethin Anthony (last seen in "Kodachrome"), William DeMeo, Deb G. Girdler (last seen in "Carol"), Tyler Jon Olson (also carrying over from "Reprisal"), Shea Buckner (ditto), Martin Blencowe (ditto), John Dauer (ditto), Jesse Pruett (ditto), Magi Avila, Christine Dye, Charlie Roetting, Chris Moss, Chelsea Mee, Robert Harvey (last seen in "The Best of Enemies").
RATING: 4 out of 10 tin cans for target practice
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