“Suffers tremendously from flawed plot and poor execution.”
Dean Cain stars as an ex-cop seeking vengeance for his
wife’s death in Vendetta, an action
film directed by sisters Jen and Sylvia Soska. The film has quite an
interesting prologue. Two police cops, Mason Danvers (Cain) and Joel
Gainer (Ben Hollingsworth) receive information about two criminals.
Immediately, the fighting duo follows the bad guys into an abandoned building
where a brief gunfight ensues. They apprehend the two thugs and while being
taken away, Victor Abbott (Paul “Big Show” Wight) threatens Danvers of taking
his revenge. What follows afterwards is a mind-blowing and energy-draining
sequence of illogical and irrational events.
The case is taken to court but due to the disappearance of
the witness, the two criminals are acquitted. When Mason calls his wife on the phone, a
different voice answers. Enlisting Joel’s help, Mason instantly goes home only
to see his wife dead and bloodied in the hands of Victor. Victor is sent to
prison, and extracting his own revenge, Mason murders the former’s brother.
Incidentally, Mason is delivered to the same prison as Victor’s. Now, it is
Mason’s lonely crusade not only against Victor but to his hordes of gangsters
as well. But soon, Mason will learn that Victor is only a pawn in the game and
that the head of the snake is only lurking in the shadows.
Vendetta suffers
from a number of things. For one, it has a very flawed plot with plenty of
incoherent and illogical ideas. It does not make sense why Victor lets himself
get caught red-handed in the beginning. He could have easily killed Mason’s
wife and run off. To fight him off, Mason follows him into the prison without
any solid plans. He simply has to find him and what he wants to do to him
afterwards is not exactly clear, as if his presence is enough to torment the
big bad guy. Mason just relies heavily on sheer luck and other’s damned folly.
While in prison, Mason’s war against Victor costs so many deaths of inmates and
yet, such violence does not cause any stir or investigations. And why would the
criminal head keep Victor living when he had already eliminated many key
members in the organization? And why is the prison that corrupted anyway? Gang
wars just happen right under the guards’ noses and they seem so unconcerned
about them.
The film also has lame and amateurish executions. The script
is badly written and events are highly predictable. Everything is repetitive
and running in circles, with Mason constantly trying to outsmart Victor and Warden
Snyder (Michael Eklund). The actions are imprecise that punches and kicks
hardly land, and yet, Mason manages to throw off his attackers with those
clumsy blows. There is no well-rehearsed choreography and the fighting scene
towards the end is chaotic beyond measure. Yes, prison riots are supposed to be
in chaos but watching random people randomly pushing and kicking others in
random directions is sore to the eyes.
The cast is just as poor as the other elements. Cain has
expressive emotions but his actions do not match them. He looks so heavy that
he seems to struggle throwing punches and kicks. Well, his bulk must be up for
the much colossal Wight. But Wight is not convincing either. Other than his
large physique, he is not genuinely menacing. When he screams at Mason in the
prison grounds, it sounds weird. Eklund is the greatest disaster among them
all. He is a funny-looking villain while
he desperately tries to sound dangerous and intimidating.
Vendetta has a
good start but gradually plunges into a chasm of unthinkable mediocrity. It is
a decent movie with humble intentions but everything in it is working against
it.
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