After more than 1 week of not able to see a new movie in theater due to combination of busy work days and other activities plus the Chinese New Year holiday, I finally got the chance to see a new movie on Friday. My wife surprisingly was free on that day so she was able to buy the tickets for me. She had some doubts of which movie that we wanted to see as there were 3 movies which we have not seen, but we decided to see this one which just premiered on Friday. I never saw the trailer to it before, but according to the category, it was an action thriller movie starting Jamie Foxx who had been nominated for numerous awards and even won Oscar one time. Should be interesting, right?. Btw, I am also writing this review while having my usual weekend staycation with my wife, in a hotel in Karawang. So here is how the story goes.
Brief Story Line
The movie opened with scene of a high speed car chase between 2 men wearing masks and two other guys who were delivering cocaine in large volume. After some heavy shootout, and police siren started to be heard, the robbers managed to escape with 25 kg of cocaine. These robbers later on were revealed to be corrupt police in Las Vegas Police Department (LVPD), i.e. Vincent Downs (Jamie Foxx - Collateral, Ray etc) and his partner Sean Cass (T.I - Ant-man, Roots etc).
On the following day, the captain decided to appoint Vincent and Sean to investigate the murder and robbery which happened the night before. However, an Internal Affairs investigator Jennifer Bryant (Michelle Monaghan - Eagle Eye, Patriots Day etc) and her partner Dennison (David Harbour - Stranger Things TV series etc) were looking into the same case as well, due to the information of police issued bullet casings found at the scene. Bryant was very suspicious that Vincent was one of the dirty cops in LVPD. She was also questioning the reason for Vincent and Sean handling the case.
Outside his police life, Vincent actually had an ex wife Dena (Gabrielle Union - Bring It On, The Birth of a Nation etc) and teenage son named Thomas. When Vincent picked up his son and was going to drive him to his soccer practice, Thomas was kidnapped by some guys with Vincent wounded by a knife. Later Vincent got a call from Stan Rubino (Dermot Mulroney - My Best Friend's Wedding, Jobs etc) who apparently was the owner of the cocaine that Vincent robbed. He was told to bring the cocaine to Stan's casino within few hours time otherwise his son would be killed. Vincent had no choice but to return the cocaine, since the cocaine was supposed to be delivered to a very vicious mob led by Rob Novak (Scoot McNairy - Gone Girl, 12 Years A Slave etc) who would not let this thing go easily.
It was supposed to be a simple exchange between Vincent and Stan at the casino. However things become very complicated when Bryant started to follow Vincent to Stan's casino and realized what they were planning on doing. She also requested her partner Dennison to come and assist him as she found out about Novak's involvement. She believed that she was about to uncover the biggest corruption which involved the major mob boss.
So could Vincent get his son back safely? Or would he be captured by Bryant before he could do so? How would this story unfolds? Find them all in this action thriller movie with few surprising twists to the story.
End of Brief Story Line
Now this was a movie that we did not know what to expect. As I said earlier, we chose it as it was the latest movie which premiered on that day and Jamie Foxx was the main character. The movie seemed to be starting in a fast pace at the beginning then it slowed down a bit. It was not until the kidnapping and the exchange of the cocaine for Vincent's son that the story was becoming more suspenseful. It was also interesting for the movie to be having some surprises and plot twists as I thought it was a straight forward action movie only.
The movie had some decent action fight scenes involving Jamie Foxx and also some cool shooting scenes at the end. The good thing about the movie was actually the surprises (though at least 1 of them should be guessed quite easily if you watch the movie carefully). Apart from those action scenes and surprises, some of the characters in the movie were not too great. I think Dermot Mulroney was not too believable as a bad guy (perhaps due to his image) and Michelle Monaghan performance was not too strong here. Though Scoot McNairy's portrayal of mob boss was quite convincing. There was also a good detail done by the actor playing Thomas (Vincent's son). And I actually quite enjoyed David Harbour's performance here as Dennison.
The sound system of the movie should be a good added value, but the theater I saw was having a normal Dolby system, which made the gun shooting sound not as amazing as I usually experienced. Apart from that flaw, the movie was actually quite entertaining as an action film with twists. But do not expect this to be an Oscar winning material like some of Jamie Foxx's other movies. And unfortunately, even though this is quite entertaining, it is also one of those forgettable movie. One that I would not be thinking of watching it again in future if I got the chance.
Another thing that actually made me wonder was the title. There seemed to be no relation at all between the title and the movie. As I browsed for more information on the movie, I noticed that it was actually a remake of a French movie titled "Sleepless Night" (still don't get the relevance of "sleepless" here). The original was having very positive reviews, but I do not believe that this one was having such high regards.
Anyway, if you have no other movie that you can watch, I think this one can be an option. But it is not one of those movies that I would say a "must-see" movie. The choice is yours.
Happy watching!
Mike's movie moments rating: 3 out of 5 stars
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