ivantohelpyou

• The protagonist Bob Lee Swagger lives in the mountains with his dog before the military interrupts his idyllic existence with a personal request to do a job. This is reminiscent of Commando, in which Matrix (Arnold Schwarzenegger) lives in the mountains with his daughter Jenny (Alyssa Milano) before being similarly called back into service. The two films have a comparable body count, although it's not quite a fair comparison because Matrix was able to kill scores of enemy soldiers without the benefit of a spotter.
  
• Remix of Lethal Weapon, with Danny Glover channeling the power-abusing South African bad guy from Lethal Weapon II and Mark Wahlberg playing the Mel Gibson righteous anger role.
  
• The part of Philadelphia was played by New Westminster, at least during one of the car chase scenes by the riverfront.
• Scooter says Mark Wahlberg is the new Bruce Willis. But the old Bruce Willis hasn't gone anywhere, considering that there were two previews for upcoming Bruce Willis movies. We can expect a Willis-Wahlberg buddy movie one of these days.
  
• Post-Entourage, it's hard to watch Mark Wahlberg without thinking, "Did Ari push him to do this movie, or did Eric actually like the script?" "What's Turtle's angle?" "Where's Drama?"
  
• More speeches than a Rocky movie.
• Second Amendment lovefest with revolutionary fervor and vigilante justice, Charles Bronson-style.
  
• Missed opportunity to bring back the 80s action-movie tradition of the kill-shot one-liner. If you've just wasted the bad guy after two-and-a-half freakin' hours, say something memorable and quotable.
• Speaking of one-liners, I still can't watch Ned Beatty without thinking of Deliverance.
  

Labels: movies