Retired DEA agent Phil Broker (Jason Statham) moves to a
rural Louisiana town with his young daughter (Izabela Vidovic) for some peace
and quiet. Due to a series of misunderstandings he becomes the target of a
deranged meth cook (James Franco) who has alerted a few of the criminals Broker
put away to his current location.
Let me get this out of the way first, Statham can actually
act. He proved it with his outstanding performances in The Bank Job and Safe and
he continues to show off that he has what it takes to play serous roles instead
of just generic action oriented ones. I really liked him in Homefront despite the fact that at the
twenty minute mark he seemed to give up on his American accent and reverted
back to his usual British brogue. And of course when it comes time to whoop
some ass he always delivers. His chemistry with Izabela Vidovic, who plays his
daughter Maddy, is tops and I totally believed that they were father and daughter.
If he can continue to hone his dramatic skills I can someday see him moving
away from action films and into some more dramatic fare.
I also liked James Franco’s very low key performance as meth
cook Gator. I usually cannot stand the guy (except in 127 Hours, Pineapple Express
and This is the End), and I was
expecting him to go completely bat shit crazy over the top with this part.
Surprisingly he did the exact opposite in giving Gator a sort of slow burn
intensity that really came off as creepy and frightening since you never knew
what angle he was going to come from. You could see the gears turning in his
head, and I thought that was pretty cool and made him out to be a very scary
and unpredictable villain.
The rest of the cast is so-so. I have never liked Kate
Bosworth (IMO she is the absolute worst Lois Lane EVER in Superman Returns) and apparently neither do casting agents. I
haven’t seen her in anything of note for years (ever see The Warrior’s Way?), and for her to turn up in as a redneck meth
addict in a Statham movie pretty much shows how desperate for a part she really
was. She looks like a meth head, but didn’t convince me she was one. Winona
Ryder pretty much slums it here and collects a paycheck as Gator’s on/off
girlfriend. Her eyes looked like they were going to pop out of her head most of
the time, so maybe she went method for this part. All I know is that she stunk.
Clancy Brown looks bored as the town sheriff and the rest of the townsfolk do
as well. I did enjoy Omar Benson Miller as Teedo. He’s naturalistic and I
actually gave a shit about his character when the shit went down in the end.
The script by none other than Sylvester Stallone (based on a
book by Chuck Logan) is decent. It has all the right ingredients for a good
action drama and delivers on all the promises it makes early on. My problem is
that I don’t like films where it’s about stupid and ignorant people doing
stupid and ignorant things for its entire length. The redneck characters are
annoying and completely unlikable even after they sort of change their
attitudes toward the main character. Sure Gator remains a douchehammer for the
whole film, but most of the others are supposed to come off as bound by some
immature and outdated sense of family pride that really rode my nerves. If I
was supposed to come to like these asshats by the end of the movie I have to
say that it was a failed mission. Completely.
Director Gary Fleder (Kiss
the Girls, Impostor, Don’t Say a Word, Runaway Jury) keeps things on the DL for the most part. It’s a low
key film without any flash or crazy camera tricks. It’s as straightforward as
they come and I assume he didn’t want this to turn into a parody as he made it.
If it even remotely went into cheese territory it would lose the audience
completely and I was happy that he went in that direction. He also keeps the
action (when there is any) in wide shots so we can see what’s going on. He
isn’t completely successful with his actors, but at least they didn’t suck.
They were just underwhelming.
One aspect I really enjoyed was that we are shown the effect
the actions the parents have on their children. We get a good sense that the
inciting incident, Maddy being bullied in the schoolyard and fighting back, was
taken a bit too seriously and leads to some horrible events of retaliation that
not only effects Maddy when people come to kill her and her father, but the boy
who initially bullied her as well when his family shows their complete disdain
for any form of human decency. The shot of the bully listening to his meth head
mother arguing with Gator on their front porch and realizing that all of this
drama and violence was caused by his one moment of acting like an asshole on
the playground makes for my favorite moment of the film.
In the end Homefront
is a decent flick. It has what you expect from a Statham film (martial arts/action)
and what you expect from something Stallone has written (‘Murica!). It doesn’t’
mix all that well in some cases, but you could definitely do a lot worse than
this entertaining waste of 90 minutes. I recommend it, but only if you have a
very high tolerance for f-bombs. I swear, there were at least three dropped
every minute.
2.5 out of 5
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