Genre: Action | Thriller
Starring: Bruce Willis, Cole Hauser and Shawn Ashmore | Director: Brett Donowho
‘Acts of Violence‘ released last week and with limited theatrical acknowledgment, Lionsgate Premier made the decision to go straight to video on-demand. This decision can be agreed as a good one as anyone who ventured out to see this movie in a theatre would have most likely wasted their time and money.
The film follows three brothers as they attempt to find and save the youngest brother’s fiancee after being kidnapped by human traffickers. Also trying to track down the missing girl is Detective James Avery (Bruce Willis) in hopes to bring the criminals he’s been chasing down for good.
The plot, as easily seen, is pretty standard. Story lines such as this one have been done countless times by action thrillers and is nothing new for the audience. This can create a slightly predictable plot and doesn’t leave much guessing into what’s going to happen. This kind of defeats the purpose of watching a film, if the want to know what’s going to happen is not there.
Ashton Holmes, Cole Hauser and Shawn Ashmore stars as the three brothers desperate to get family member Mia (Melissa Bolana) in 2018’s ‘Acts of Violence’.
Along with this simple story, the characters were so badly acted it was nearly unbearable. The character of Mia (Melissa Bolona) was probably the worst performance throughout this entire movie, and with being a lead role, definitely caused the film to go down in rating. Her character was super annoying, constantly looked awkward and almost uncomfortable when on screen, causing the audience to not care for her, at all.
Not only was the lead female role not the greatest, the other cast members weren’t too great either. They all seemed so wooden on camera and with the zero character development within this film, not a care was given to either one of these characters. This made some moments fall flat instead of being the emotional scenes they set out to be. The characters made ridiculous decisions which, even for an action movie, just seemed too far fetched. Bruce Willis couldn’t even save this one. He matched well with the other cast members by being just as plain and two dimensional as them. It seems like he almost doesn’t care how well he performs in movies anymore.
Bruce Willis plays Detective James Avery in ‘Acts of Violence’.
The whole story of this film is surrounded around the criminals which are described as these highly intelligent, dangerous guys who run the city. Somehow though, this fails to be seen. The criminals are barely seen on screen and when they are, intelligence and danger are far from portrayed. The characters almost look stupid and ridiculous by taking these criminals so seriously due to the feeling of a threat being nonexistent.
This film does have some okay-looking shots in some places and definitely doesn’t have the look of a low-budget action flick. However, the messy editing feels like gaps of the story has been cut out and rushed, seeming almost like even the creators wanted the film to be over.
Along with a highly unsatisfying ending that makes the audience feel like they’re missing part of the story, this film brings a mostly negative feel to it. Nonetheless, even with the bad acting, patchy editing and lifeless Bruce Willis, the film isn’t unwatchable. Anything over it’s 86 minute running time, this movie would have felt like a drag. Overall though, audiences should be thrilled that this wasn’t a theatre release where money could be wasted as this barely deserved a spot on-demand and is one to be forgotten.
- ‘Acts of Violence‘ is available now on iTunes.
