Michael Ledo
This is another teen abduction/ Eastern European sex trade/ rescue movie. Samson Gaul (Jean-Claude Van Damme) is the village butcher who moonlights as a mercenary. His accent varies throughout the film. His son (Kristopher Van Varenberg) who works at the US embassy, sends him clients.When Andrew Fayden(Joe Flanigan), an American cage fighter's daughter Becky (Charlotte Beaumont) is kidnapped, he calls on Samson who is reluctant to take the case. On his last case he generated a significant amount of collateral damage that wasn't as funny as when MacGruber does it.The movie has a slight twist which really wasn't much of a twist. Monica Fayden (Anna-Louise Plowman) mouthing statistics in the middle of the film made me think this was a 93 minute public service announcement. In addition to beating up people, Samson uses elaborate high tech stuff. He is capable of setting up complex traps in a matter of moments. The movie "Taken" has set the bar for this genre and unfortunately this one doesn't measure up. Will work as a rental.Parental Guide: F-bomb, no sex, no real nudity. Women in strip clubs scantily dressed. One woman with large pasties...nothing we haven't seen at Superbowl half time.
omendata
I am not a big fan of Jean Claude and thought he had his hey day 20 years ago and found most of his later stuff a bit corny as though it was coming straight off a production line but I am now having to rethink this.The action in this film is not your usual fake, unconvincing kicks and roundhouses but more in the style of Taken with Liam Neeson and is very well choreographed and not your usual sanitised violence.I have always liked Joe Flanigan from Stargate Atlantis - he has always been a favorite actor and he was well cast in this.There were some really cool ideas like the pen with the hypodermic - never seen that one before.This was a rather good action movie; much much better than expected. It seems Jean Claude has re-invigorated his acting career and his older world worn, chiselled face makes him seem altogether more real and less plastic than his old persona if this is anything to judge by.
brchthethird
Jean-Claude Van Damme stars in another above-par DTV outing, and proves that he's still relevant (at least more relevant than Steven Seagal). There's nothing too special about the story, seeing as it's been done before in various forms (e.g., TAKEN). Even the cinematography isn't too unique, and has a washed-out palette that is all-too-common in these types of movies. But unlike TAKEN, this movie actually takes the time to develop its characters and give you reason to care about them. In other words, it's not all ass-kicking and one-liners (and in fact, there really isn't any humor). The run time is a little overlong (by about 15-20 minutes), but it's spent with characters you can identify with and a story that has some dramatic impact. Definitely for JCVD fans, but also for anyone looking to branch out beyond the middling action fare that Hollywood churns out nowadays.
taijiquan12
Jean Claude Van Damme has still got it. At his age, he's kept in fantastic shape and has only gotten better at acting. For a guy who's improved so much, it would be nice if he was given better projects than 6 Bullets, a dreadfully slow, poorly edited and acted straight to DVD release who's 115 minutes feels more like 3 hours.6 Bullets actually begins with promise, with Van Damme in a fantastically choreographed fight scene which proves to be one of the last you'll see from him in the film. There's another decent scene about 2 thirds in, but the opening with Van Damme sporting disguise facial hair is easily the best part. It's all downhill from there.I'm not incredibly demanding of the plots of stuff like this, so a kidnap/rescue type thing is in no way bad, it can be pulled off really well, as seen in Taken with Liam Neeson. But everything about the execution and the way the kidnapping happens, coupled with how we don't see the villains or any motivating factor for the villains til much later really hurts the movie.Speaking of hurt, one of the worst aspects of the movie is the insanely plain Joe Flanigan. Everything about this guy is bland, and he is beyond unconvincing for his role as an MMA fighter. Not only is he not in shape for the part at all, but he has these distractingly awful douchebag tattoos that are supposed to sell him as the fighter he's supposed to be, but so clearly isn't. It wouldn't be too bad if Flanigan was in the movie briefly to allow Van Damme to come in and kick some ass, but that isn't it. Oh no. Flanigan and his character's wife practically take over the movie, making you forget at parts that Van Damme is even in it, with each segment including Flanigan being gut-wrenchingly grueling.Everything 6 Bullets really has to offer is in it's opening scene. Had the entire movie been made that way, it would've been a fun, one-off action thriller. As it stands, it's a lesson in the value of pacing in filmmaking.
AD
