“Once more into the fray.

Into the last good fight I’ll ever know.

Live and die on this day.

Live and die on this day.”

This bit of ‘Irish’ poetry serves as both a repeated mantra in The Grey, as well as a description of what the film is about. Take some very tough men who work in the Arctic oil fields. As John Ottway played by Liam Neeson describes them, they are ‘criminals, ex-cons, and the assholes of the world‘. They work hard, they party hard, and they’re far away from both the society and civilization that we take for granted. By their own choice. All are fleeing some inner demons as well as out to earn some tough money; having signed on to do work that most of wouldn’t even consider.

After a particularly rough night at the bar, (Neeson’s Ottway considered ending his life on this night) a large group of them saddle up for a flight to somewhere – maybe to another work site, or maybe back to civilization (Anchorage) – we aren’t told, and it doesn’t matter. Because the plane crashes. In the middle of nowhere.

Ottway awakens from his dreams about his wife, not during the crash, but afterwards. Temps in the single digits will do that to you. About 8 men survived the crash but one will die off right away. And then there were seven.

The survivors will have deal with everything the Nature can hurl at them – bitter cold, snow, ice, and a lack of water, warmth, shelter, and food. If that wasn’t enough – a pack of wolves – aren’t very happy that these intruders have suddenly descended into their territory.

There’s your set up. Men against nature, the elements, and the wolves, with the emphasis on the extremely territorial wolves. I shouldn’t have to tell that the number of remaining (as in alive) humans is going to dwindle. Directed by Joe Carnahan and produced by Ridley and Tony Scott (among others), the film does a marvelous job in setting the stage – it does look cold, and some of the wilderness locations are spectacular. The cast of characters has the expected amalgam of male types that we’ve seen before in these types of ‘survival’ films, and there’s nothing new in who and what they are, or how they interact, so you don’t really develop a liking for any of them.

Of course they don’t stick around all that long, so the character development, actually the lack of character development, is sort of built into the structure, and you should expect it. John Ottway has been hired as the rifle carrying sniper to protect these men from wolves and bears while they work, so he has the most knowledge about wolves, as well as survival techniques.  Despite his knowledge, he won’t be fully endorsed as the de facto leader. Someone will even ask that very question – you know, ‘Who appointed you chief?‘.

That’s to be expected as well. We do need to have some antagonism between the survivors.  So they beat on, in ever decreasing numbers, against the elements with the hunter/hunted roles reversed.

If I say, Wow – those fangs, those claws, the intensity of those eyes – I’m more likely to be referencing John Ottway than the wolves. That’s because the wolves themselves will require more imagination than anything else. We never really get a good look at them. We hear them and we occasionally see some movements from a distance – but they’re animatronics creations instead of the real thing.

I have to say that the film has some definite plusses – this is no walk in the park, and is definitely not a picture for the kids. The language is tough and the actors do look like a group that is involved in a life or death struggle.

But there’s not a lot of character development and some of the grousing about god, morality, ethics, and so forth don’t always work either – but we have them in the film because such ingredients are always a part of a survival stew.

The film runs a few minutes short of two hours, and though much of it is quite exciting – it isn’t a film destined to become a classic. There are some females parts in the film but they all slot into the past as remembrances and dreams of the survivors rather than being a part of the present time struggle.

Carnahan and his co-screenwriter Ian Mackenzie Jeffers have written a tale of desperation in a desolate place. The film isn’t uplifting, and there’s no happy ending. Tom Hanks had his Wilson to help him get through the days in Cast Away. Here, Ottway has only his survival instincts, and even if that is saying a lot, there’s always the question of – for how long can he do it?

Three point seven five for the weather and the natural elements, the good job by Neeson, and realistically, this is a good film for a foul weather Friday in Florida. We even lost power due to the storm, and all 12 auditoriums in the cineplex went dark at the same time. But this one is far from satisfying on all levels. I simply can’t say that this one will garner repeat viewings, hence the above average rating cannot go any higher.

These days, HBO is more than just a rival of the broadcast networks. If anything, I think HBO has run right on past those behemoths, and now HBO sees the big box stores of TV in their rear-view mirror.

Beginning this Sunday, January 29th, HBO launches a brand new, 9 episode series called Luck. The pilot aired 6 weeks ago on December 11th, and the comments weren’t very pretty.

I’m hoping that the pedigree of the makers of this series along with the great cast will result in some necessary improvements and will propel the series into becoming a ‘must see’.

On another level, I’ve been to the races myself quite often. Now that I am in Florida, and aren’t living anywhere near NY’s Belmont Park and Aqueduct Race Track, I don’t get to go at all – so that’s another reason why I am interested in this production.

What’s it About: If you start with luck, which we all have (in one form or another) and extend it out to gambling, we can then safely find ourselves at the racetrack, and by that I mean where horses race and people wager on the outcome of those races. In California that would mean Santa Anita, Hollywood Park, or Del Mar. The Series Luck is about the crossing or intersection of lives in and around horse racing and the world of gambling around one specific track, and in this series, that would be Santa Anita. Those folks would be bettors who might be celebrities or just plain folks, owners of the horses, trainers, jockeys, stable hands, vets, the media who provide coverage of the races, and all that goes with trying to win money by betting on the ponies.

Who’s In It: The headliner is Dustin Hoffman in his very first regular role in a TV series. You could argue that he was in a series once before, but that was Tootsie, and that was a movie about a TV series. Here he plays Chester ‘Ace’ Bernstein.

Dennis Farina plays Bernstein’s driver Gus Demitriou. Not sure why he was cast as a Greek, but he’s got plenty of charisma, and he’s got oodles of talent. Farina starred in the TV Series Crime Story, and was seen in 46 episodes of Law & Order as Detective Joe Fontana. His most famous role was that of the gangster Joey Serrano in the film Midnight Run.

Nick Nolte plays a horse trainer. John Ortiz who worked with director Michael Mann in the Miami Vice film as Jose Yero, here plays Turo Escalante.

Kind, Hennessey, & Dunn

Richard Kind plays a jockey’s Agent. Other notables include Kevin Dunn, Ritchie Coster, Jason Gedrick, Jill Hennessey as the Vet, Ian Hart and Tom Payne. Gary Stevens, in real life a former professional jockey and a member of the Horse Racing Hall of Fame, portrays jockey Ronnie Jenkins in the series.

Who’s Behind the Cameras: The Luck Series was created by David Milch who has also created, produced, and written a number of memorable TV shows like Deadwood and Hill Street Blues. He also has writing credits for Big Apple, Brooklyn South, and L.A.Law plus others. In short, he had been a major player in TV Dramatic Series for a long time.

Michael Mann is the Executive Producer, and he also Directed the pilot for Luck. Mann has a lengthy list of Director Credits. Such films as Public Enemies, Miami Vice, Collateral, Ali, The Insider, Heat, Manhunter, Thief, and The Last of the Mohicans were all directed by Michael Mann. But Mann is most famous for his TV Series, Miami Vice which ran for 5 seasons and 111 episodes.

That’s the background for the series. The series has its 2012 premier on Sunday night, and you will be able to see Episode 2 immediately after on your computer at HBOGO.com if you are a subscriber to HBO via your cable TV provider.

In the world of government trained or hired contract operatives otherwise known as assassins – things work a tad differently. You don’t get called to take an asap meeting in HR, nor do you sit down with a person hired to fire you a la George Clooney in Up in the Air. No, in this world, you get, as Noah Vosen said in The Bourne Ultimatum, the sharp end of the stick.

Vosen also said – “Issue a standing kill order on Jason Bourne, effective immediately”. He later went on to add, “All agents have shoot-on-sight authorization.“

That’s how it went for Bourne, only he proved to be not only unwilling, but also the toughest target they ever went after.

So too is Mallory Kane, played by Gina Carano, in the brand new Steven Soderbergh helmed actioner called Haywire which opened today. The references to Bourne are unavoidable. As are references you might want to make about Jolie’s Salt. Similar stories, different year, different stars. Speaking of stars, Soderbergh, as usual, has cast a rather lengthy list of well-known  actors some of whom will be summarily butt-kicked by Ms Carano.

Antonio Banderas, Michael Douglas, Michael Fassbender, Ewan McGregor, Bill Paxton,and Channing Tatum are the male headliners, or nearly the universe of the major male players in this film.

So much for the ‘Who’. Our next question might be ‘What’s it about?’ Aside from the obvious which you can surmise from my intro – that Mallory Kane’s days are numbered – we have missions that aren’t really explained all that thoroughly, motives that aren’t really clear, except when McGregor’s Kenneth says, ‘It’s always about money’.

Of course there is one more facet that always comes into play in these types of films – Trust No One.

We skip around from upstate New York, to Barcelona, to Dublin, to New Mexico, to Majorca without the least concern about passports, cash, ‘public transportation hubs being watched’ or even the availability of a seat. But isn’t that to be expected?

Anyway, back to Ms Carano, a former player on the TV show American Gladiators, as well as a tough competitor and a Champion in the MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) competitions. This is her first acting role. However we can’t really say that she’s acting. She does what she did before films – kick butt. But she has to kiss a guy, recite some lines, and look fit. All of which she does without any sweat.

Speaking of reciting some lines. Soderbergh and his screenplay author Lem Dobbs, have Mallory and a male patron of the Upstate NY diner where the film opens, drive off. This character Scott (Michael Angarano) has three main purposes. He bandages a wound on Mallory’s arm while she drives, it was his car, and he serves as the listener while Mallory bring many of us up to date while giving us info about the events that happened before the diner, as well as introducing some of the players in flashback. Scott sticks around for a while, then when the past and the present have sufficiently merged he’s jettisoned.

The thing of it is that none of the story seems all that important. We don’t really build up an affinity or hatred for any of the folks involved including Mallory. She might be the centerpiece of the story – but it is hard to say, with conviction, that you like her. She is tough as nails, she’s smart, and she’s good looking. You root for her – but that’s as far as it goes.

Now for the guys – Michael Douglas is the government connection. He gets off the best line in the whole film when describing what happened in Barcelona – ‘Negotiations broke down’.

Bill Paxton, the Pres in Independence Day (sorry- that’s wrong – that was Bill Pullman, thanks Melissa for the correction) is Mallory’s Dad. Antonio Banderas is involved as a conspirator and he has the last spoken line in the film which is two words, “Oh Shit!”.

Channing Tatum is an operative just like Mallory, and he’ll lock lips with her. Ewan McGregor is Mallory’s handler Kenneth. He gives out the assignments. By the way, Douglas talks with McGregor and we hear that the deals between Kenneth’s outfit – sort of an Assassins for Hire agency, by the day, the week, or the month – no job too dirty, and Douglas’s government agency involve  contracts worth 8 figures – that’s 10 million at minimum, yet Kenneth has the worst haircut ever for a prime time character in this type of film.

Did I leave anyone out? Yes I did – that would be Michael Fassbender who Mallory meets in Dublin, and they’ll stay at the Shelbourne Hotel (nice place – I’ve been there) . He’s not who he appears to be, and neither is Mallory, as they pose as husband and wife.

Yeah as an action film, it’s not surprising that it whizzes by in a rapid 93 minutes. Soderbergh leaves the jittery hand held camera out of this one, and the editing is sharp and crisp. There’s a jazzy score which is nice, and we don’t hear it during the hand-to-hand fighting. There’s also not a lot of sunshine and bright color. Atmospheric I guess, and it works best when Mallory is involved in a chase sequence through some of Barcelona’s winding and narrow, ancient cobbled streets.

I’ll give Soderbergh a lot of credit for casting an ‘unknown’ in the title role. Then again, after Croft, Salt, and her role in The Tourist, Jolie wasn’t going to do another action role. But Carano brings plenty to the role. Seems likely she’ll do more films, and quite possibly a sequel to this one.

Three point zero is my rating. This one isn’t bad but it’s not all that special either. The action is solid, but the picture lacks ‘cool’. Then again, I don’t think it was ever intended to be cool.

Men seem to like female action heroines, just as long as they’re not the one being kicked or worse by her. I’m one of those as well. It’s a combination of respect and fear as well as simple attraction. But enough about me.

Got some time on your hands, and you’re looking for an action film. Haywire, will be just what you want to see. An hour and half seems plenty long enough. And without a lot to think about, it goes by seemingly faster than that.

This film is about a high level headhunter who finds executives for large and wealthy corporations. But as we find out rather quickly, his real career is that of an art thief.

He meets these top of the food chain executives, who are looking for even better deals, susses them out, and when he strikes gold, he not only has a possible candidate for the position he’s been hired to fill, but he also has a target who owns art, has a set schedule, and most importantly – a home that will be empty.

So our hero is called Roger Brown. He lives in elegant modern home, has a statuesque and beautiful trophy wife – Diana, and more than anything else, he commits these thefts to keep his wife living in the style he thinks she wants.

At a cocktail party, Roger is introduced to a man, Clas Greve, who might be a candidate for the Pathfinder CEO job that he’s been working on. But more importantly, Brown is told that this man owns an original Rubens painting. Visions of millions dance before Brown’s eyes; and that’s about all the set up you need.

The film was sharp, and clever with plenty of unexpected events. It is extremely well made, and I’m telling you that it really was a thriller. It is also not for the squeamish though the violence blends in very well in the sense that they don’t make it more important than the plot .

The film carries a MPAA rating of R (Restricted) for bloody violence, including some quite grisly images, strong sexual content, and nudity. In short – it’s got it all.

Some background – the film is directed by Morten Tyldum, but more importantly the screen play for this film was adapted from the Jo Nesbo novel. Nesbo is an author whose books have been translated into forty languages. His books are best sellers across the globe. In fact, this film was so highly anticipated that it was sold to more than 50 distributors world- wide upon its release.

Just so you know, the rights to make an English language version of this film have already been sold to Summit Entertainment and Yellow Bird even before the Norwegian version was released. In case you have forgotten, Yellow Bird was also behind the Swedish language films of the Millenium Trilogy (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo etc) from the Stieg Larsson novels.

Beyond that, Martin Scorsese has also been hired to direct an adaption of Nesbo’s novel, The Snowman, which I have ordered but won’t have it until April. So it is quite clear that this one, Headhunters, or Hodejegerne, has an impressive pedigree.

Now for the cast: Brown is played by Aksel Hennie, the blonde wife Diana is played by Synnove Macody Lund in her first ever film role, and Clas Greve is played by Nickolaj Coster-Waldau who some of you may have seen in a featured role on the HBO Series – Game of Thrones.

I think it was a very exciting film, and the fact that I wasn’t familiar with any of the cast helped increase the excitement because everything was new to me. The film plays out to ever escalating action and with each action set piece there’s an accompanying  revelation.

As for the setting and location of where the film was made – it was all Norway, but in all honesty, they don’t go out of their way to establish any notable or recognizable locations.

The film is rich in imaginative and different settings, some are entirely unexpected. As are some of the twists and turns that the film tosses at you. Suffice to say, this is not your standard art-heist caper film.

But if you’re looking for an edge of your seat, suspenseful, taut and tense thriller, this one more than fills the bill. Have a look at this teaser trailer and you’ll be hooked. Four point zero is my rating.

Directed by Zhang Yimou, this epic film is about courage and sacrifice set against the ravages and horrors of war in 1937 in Nanjing, China. This film also marks the first time that a Western Actor has the lead role in a Chinese production.

The film has a limited opening playing only in a short list of select cities (just 21 theaters nationwide) beginning on Friday, January 20th, 2012.

Since it is not playing anywhere in Florida, I have to hope that it will achieve a wider distribution later on, or I’ll have to wait for the DVD to review it.

Christian Bale (an Oscar winner for The Fighter and he starred as Batman in The Dark Knight) has the lead role. He plays a traveling mortician, attending to the dead, while not an adventurer, he’s kind of a wayfaring dissolute man who happened to find himself in Nanjing, and at the church, when the Japanese troops attacked the city in December of 1937.

By circumstances unknown to me, so I’ll call them luck and fate, he and a group of frightened Chinese Catholic schoolgirls and another group made up of a dozen beautiful courtesans, find themselves trapped inside a walled compound, a home to a cathedral – which they hope will afford them safety from the marauding soldiers. Bale’s character, John Miller, will take up the role of the church’s priest, donning the clothing and vestments of a recently killed priest for the impersonation.

That’s about all the set up I can provide not having seen the film.

Zhang Yimou’s cinematic pedigree – Raise the Red Lantern (1991), Shanghai Triad (1995), The Road Home (2000), Hero (2002), House of Flying Daggers (2004), and Curse of the Golden Flower (2006) are amongst his best known films that have garnered interest, praise and adulation from western audiences.

He’s worked with Gong Li multiple times (at least 5 films), and with Zhang Ziyi at least three times. So he’s got the talent and the rep to attract China’s most beautiful and best known actresses.

The reviews have been mixed, but if you are attracted to Asian beauties, love going to the movies, and you live in or near LA, San Francisco, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Washington DC, Houston, Honolulu, Seattle, or Atlanta – then you will have an opportunity to see the film on the big screen as soon as Friday, Jan. 20th.

For interviews with Director Zhang Yimou and lead actress Ni-Ni, visit Sidewalks.

To view a calendar with The Flowers of War beauties as the models visit Beijing Shots.

The trailer for The Flowers of War is below:

I’m in a similar quandary of trying to figure out what they want us to think of Mrs. Thatcher. But I also have a question: A.O. Scott of the New York Times, and the venerated film critic Roger Ebert, and many other film critics and bloggers have used the term ‘impersonation’ referencing Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher. How come, no one referred to Leonardo DiCaprio ‘impersonating’ J.Edgar (Hoover) in the same way?

While you ponder that – the film played before a theater that was about 75% filled for a 10:45 AM show on this rather chilly Saturday morning in Sarasota, FL. The crowd was mostly senior citizens, and I believe a good many of them were British. The crowd was quiet and well behaved – I didn’t detect even one cell phone in use during the film. As we filed out, the crowd was rather reserved and quiet. Or maybe I should say deferential.

There’s no doubt that Thatcher was not only dynamic, but she was a lightning rod who both united and divided the citizens of her country. But Britain was always so class-conscious. Even back in the 50′s when Margaret was still Margaret Roberts and looking to use her mind, and her degree from Oxford, as an entry way into the world of politics, she was reminded of her working class status – she was called the daughter of a grocer – at least three times in the film.

After she loses her first attempt at being voted into Parliament, and her future husband reminds her in the post-election gloom, that she lost because she is a grocer’s daughter, in their eyes, and a SINGLE grocer’s daughter at that. He suggests that she’d do better if she was the wife of a moderately successful businessman – in short, he proposes marriage to her.

After accepting the proposal she lays her cards out on the table for Denis. She’s says that she will never be one of those women – who stay silent and pretty on the arm of her husband. Or remote or alone in the kitchen doing the washing up.

She says, “No … one’s life must matter, Denis. Beyond the cooking and the cleaning and the children, one’s life must be more than that – I cannot die washing up a tea cup.”

This was 1950 – she has just lost the run for the Parliament seat from Dartford. But she showed us, and Denis, her steely resolve. This may have been 1950 but this was also a strong feminist statement by a future world leader. A leader who would say later in her life and political career, that she’d put the ‘Great’ back in Great Britain.

So eventually she won a seat in Parliament in 1959. When you think of Parliament you also think of it as the equivalent of the US Senate. But mostly you don’t think of as 1) the old boys  club, 2) the seat of the national government yet a place where heckling and cat-calling were not considered rude but welcomed and expected just as long as you referenced the other speaker as the Right and Honorable.

A member said to her and the gathered Members: ‘Methinks the Right Honourable Lady doth screech too much. If she wants us to take her seriously she must learn to calm down.’

Margaret’s reply, ” If the right honourable gentleman could perhaps attend more closely to WHAT I am saying, rather than HOW I am saying it, he may receive a valuable education in spite of himself.”

Yes, just another day at the Madhouse, as Parliament was called by those privy to be seated members.

It was a difficult place for any rookie Member of Parliament, but as a woman, she was tested even further than most. As Thatcher puts it later in the film, “I’ve been fighting a war every day of my life.”

From that beginning, Thatcher rose to become the leader of her country. Then, rightly or wrongly, she took on the English Labor and trade unions, then Argentina in the Falklands war. “The Falkland Islands belong to Britain and I want them back.”

Then the  Russians, and just about anyone that got in her way. She was tough as nails, unbending, and even had no hesitation in either berating or belittling her staff and other senior members of the English government. She took pride in the fact that she was a grocer’s daughter – but the average citizen resented how she strong-armed the labor unions; seemingly giving sway to the corporations.

So she was in some quarters loved, and in others reviled and hated. The film showed us archival newsreel footage of riots in the streets – with the uniformed police in conflict and struggling mightily to hold back the surging protesters of Thatcher’s policies. Seemingly,  the film makers don’t take a definitive stand on any subject, policy, or principle that Thatcher stood for.  We are left to our own devices and thought processes to determine what we thought of her.

Yet following every momentous speech, or every event that played out on the world’s stage, what followed would be the transference back to the present with Margaret’s deterioration evident to all, except to Margaret herself.

Streep gave us everything she had, and she was great at it, as Margaret Thatcher the Prime Minister. But the film spent more time in her later years – as an older woman, Margaret Thatcher, the citizen, whose grip on reality was lessening with each day. Here Streep showed us a woman who had little left except her memories and her pride. Eight years after Denis Thatcher had passed away, Margaret still had daily conversations with him in her mind. Her dementia was such that her family didn’t want her to go out of the house alone.

I can imagine how difficult it was for Streep to don the prosthetics and make up necessary to portray this older and proud woman, who refused to let go of Denis, so many years after his passing but didn’t believe she was in faltering health at all. Beyond that, I wonder how Streep dealt with the idea of her own future while gazing into a mirror and seeing Thatcher but also knowing that something similar could be what she might see of herself down the road.

There have been some commentaries that said it wasn’t necessary to show Margaret’s encroaching dementia, that this was an invasion of her privacy. I don’t quite agree with that. In fact, Streep herself was angered by those type of comments – and her reply was that it is life and it is the truth.

What is your take on that?

I believe that while the film spent more time on Margaret’s private life than public life, the treatment is sympathetic in the sense that we have no prohibitions about discussing heart disease in films, so why this furor?

I’m going to rate this one as a four point zero out of five. While the film makers show a certain reticence about taking a stand about Thatcher’s political stances, the film does engage the viewer. The film could have been made on a smaller scale, but it wasn’t. This appears to be a film made with a very ample budget. Kudos must also go to Jim Broadbent who portrayed the older Denis Thatcher, as well as to all the actors and actresses I didn’t know or recognize in the supporting roles.

Even though we are taken inside Thatcher’s post government life – and it is not all flowers and sunsets – the film is distinctly praise worthy. The extraordinary Streep once again shines, though I must says she has been given the best lines in the script. The film touches on the many high points and highlights of her career. But Margaret’s victories on the world and national stage are always off-set by her being dragged out of her memories and back to the present where things are going less well. The failure to slant the film either pro-Thatcher or anti-Thatcher vis-a-vis political leanings, is not that big a deal as you watch the story unfold. You may certainly considered this after, if you like. But in my view, that failing doesn’t detract enough for me to give the film a lower score.

The best thing I can say about my trip to the cinema to see this film today, was that along with Contraband, I saw the trailer for the next Denzel Washington thriller called Safe House which opens on the 10th of February.

Contraband isn’t so much of a stinker, it’s more like competent and workmanlike at best but most folks won’t be willing to rate it that high. It’s the tale of someone who thought he was out of the life (of crime), and then he was (all-together-now) pulled back in.

Wahlberg ‘s character is Chris Farraday – a super smuggler now going straight with his own security installation business. He’s MWK (married with kids), he’s very happy, and his Dad, now incarcerated, calls the day when Chris left the life, the happiest day of his life.

But Farraday’s brother-in-law got himself between a rock and hard-place. He was running in a drug shipment aboard a ship that the CPB (Customs & Border Protection) cops decided to interdict. He was either going to be found in possession of more than 10 pounds of an illegal drug by the cops, or he could dump it in the harbor, and then hope for the best with the bad guy who would have neither his drugs nor his buy money.

The bad guy, called Tim Briggs, is played by Giovanni Ribisi. What goes around comes around as it was in 2000 that Ribisi played the relative caught between a similar rock and a hard place in Gone in 60 Seconds, and had to be rescued by his brother played by Nicholas Cage. So Ribisi has ‘graduated’ from the not-ready-for-prime-time-crime kid to the other side of the coin as a tough crime boss who wants his shipment.

Ribisi doesn’t quite have the look or feel of what the role requires. It wouldn’t matter how many jailhouse tats he sports, or his beard and general scruffiness – he’s not right for the role.

So Wahlberg as Chris Farraday, has to strap it on, and get himself down to Panama, on a freight carrying ship, so he can earn a sizeable chunk of change running in (smuggling) 15 Million in super-notes aka counterfeit US Currency. That’s what’s wrapped in plastic (above).

That’s your set up. The action begins and ends in New Orleans which is the USA’s largest and busiest shipping port. In between we have the middle section of the film set in Panama.

The film was Directed by Baltasar Kormakur, and he’s opted for a grungy industrial look and feel. We see very little of the Big Easy’s more famous parishes and neighborhoods – instead we get a lot of night views from helicopters, and of the busy sea port. Panama fares even worse.

What brings this film down is that things always go wrong – in fact nothing goes as planned. But everything always works out. Wahlberg was effectively tough, and he didn’t proffer any memorable one liners.

There was zero humor in the film except if you decide to laugh about the beyond counting  ‘lucky breaks’ that happen to happen, or maybe the amazing incompetence displayed by the bad guys. Like watch for the big, big big payoff at the end – when you see  and will realize that in this film crime does pay. Quite handsomely as well.

Kate Beckinsale had the thankless role of wife, and mother, who when she wasn’t being harassed or beaten up by the bad guys, she was on the phone.

Overall the film is watchable as a rental down the road or if you can see it cheaply. But if you go for the full ticket price, you’ll be spending a lot more than you should for a less than fulfilling movie.

Three point zero out of five, and that’s being quite generous.