Introduction

This is a post that is a repurposing of an old-school Mini-Review Round-Up post. As stated here I am essentially done with running multi-film review posts. Each film deserves its own review. Therefore I will repost, and at times add to, old reviews periodically. Enjoy!

Homefront

It’s rather poetic justice that in a year when the old guard of the action film, namely Stallone and Schwarzenegger, would have some hard times opening films like they once did; or just providing serviceable action vehicles, that it would be Jason Statham in a script adapted by Stallone that would be in a film I could really get behind. It’s almost a symbolic passing of the torch. Statham has been around for a bit, and I’ve been tough on him; action stars need not be thespians but the films I’d seen were also not that great. This one, if you can get past a silly wig and a fairly clichéd set-up, delivers the goods. There’s of course the family man angle that helps give it some emotional pull. The fact that young Izabela Vidovic is fantastic and that Statham interacts well with her helps. However, another boon is that the inciting incident leads the aggrieved sister to call on her brother Gator (James Franco) who becomes the antagonist. He’s a really great in this film because there are a few facets to him, and his performance is magnetic, locked-in. All the build, even things that don’t seem like they’ll matter, follow through and the finale is really exciting. I tweeted that it may make a Statham fan of me, see his unseen projects, and just maybe revisit some. The first may happen if he has more upcoming like this because this movie really works and put him in a position to succeed.

8/10