Don’t let the title of the latest Jason Statham thriller “Homefront”
(*** OUT OF ****) deceive you. This is
no soap opera about life in the boondocks.
“Things To Do In Denver When You’re Dead” director Gary Fleder and “Cobra”
scenarist Sylvester Stallone should have entitled it “Hell On A Bayou.” This exciting but formulaic revenge saga pits
a retired DEA Agent against a murderous bunch of bikers and rednecks who resemble
the hellions in the “Sons of Anarchy” television series. Naturally, Statham plays the conscientious DEA
Agent who witnessed a gross miscarriage of justice that his superior defends as
‘protocol.’ After an explosive drug bust
at a New Orleans’ nightclub, our undercover hero’s brothers-in-blue mow down a
clueless biker in a fusillade of gunfire.
Apparently, they suspected that the poor slob was reaching for a
concealed weapon during a stand-off. The
blood-splattered experience sickened our protagonist enough that he resigned
from the agency and settled down in a two-bit Louisiana town to raise his young
daughter. While he wants to put as much
distance between his past as he can, our hero doesn’t realize that escaping his
bullet-riddled past is easier said than done.
Basically, “Homefront” shares a lot in common with a witness relocation thriller,
except the hero here is a cop rather than an eye-witness. Stallone adapted Chuck Logan’s novel, but the
filmmakers have altered the setting from Minnesota to Louisiana. A former Vietnam veteran, Logan has published
eight novels about his protagonist Phil Broker, and “Homefront” appeared in
print back in 2009. As it turns out, “Homefront”
provides Statham with an ideal vehicle, and its rural setting and dastardly
villains have the flavor of an Elmore Leonard novel. Co-stars James Franco, Winona Ryder, Clancy
Brown, Kate Bosworth, and Frank Grillo constitute a first-class cast for this gritty,
hard-boiled, methamphetamine melodrama.
Everything goes wrong for our hero when his nine-year old daughter
Maddy (newcomer Izabela Vidovic) picks on the wrong bully at her elementary
school. Fat Teddy Klum (Austin Craig) not
only steals Maddy’s baseball cap, but he also terrorizes the willowy little
darling on the playground. Maddy warns
Teddy twice to hand her cap back, but Teddy chuckles contemptuously at the
defiant little waif. Imagine Teddy’s
surprise when Maddy socks him in the snout and knocks him on his obese butt! Phil Broker (Jason Statham of “Safe”) is
remodeling a house with his African-American partner Teedo (Omar Benson Miller
of “8 Mile”) when he receives a call from the Rayville Elementary School. School psychologist Susan Hetch (Rachelle
Lefevre of “Twilight”) briefs Broker about the incident, and Sheriff Keith Rodrigue
(Clancy Brown of “Highlander”) struggles to keep Teddy’s mom Cassie Bodine Klum
(Kate Bosworth of “Straw Dogs”) off Broker’s back. When she cannot slap Broker around, Cassie
incites her husband Jimmy (Marcus Hester of “Lawless”) to rough him up. Broker puts Jimmy out of action with the ease
of a kung fu master, and the sheriff wonders where our hero got his
training. Later, Cassie resorts to her scumbag
brother, Gator (James Franco of “Spring Breakers”), to take care of
Broker. Teedo warns Broker that Gator
operates a local meth factory and discourages any competitors by informing on
them to Sheriff Rodrigue. Gator burglarizes
Broker’s remote house in the middle of the woods and stumbles upon Broker’s
files from his DEA days. Furthermore, he
discovers Broker was the anonymous snitch that sent Outcast motorcycle gang
member Danny T Turrie (Chuck Zito of “Carlito’s Way”) to prison and put the
first of the 47 bullets into Danny’s worthless son Jojo (Linds Edwards) on the
street in New Orleans. Gator concocts a hare-brained
scheme with low-life waitress Sheryl Marie Mott (Winona Ryder of “Heathers”) to
alert the Outcasts about Broker’s whereabouts.
Gator dreams in his naive mind that the Outcasts will repay him for his
friendly little tip by helping him distribute his meth. Outcast motorcycle chieftain Cyrus Hanks
(Frank Grillo of “Disconnect”) and his best bangers roll into Rayville with
payback on their brains. Meanwhile, our hero realizes that he is living in a
land where feuding is a way of life. At
the last minute, after Gator has stolen Maddy’s pet kitten, Broker smells the
stench of murder in the air and tries to clear out. Unfortunately, our hero doesn’t get far
before he discovers that there is too much lead in the air for him to hightail
it without jeopardizing his daughter’s life.
Mind you, “Homefront” would be just another entertaining but
predictable shoot’em up, but director Gary Fleder has assembled a knock-out
cast of celebrity talent and orchestrated some crowd pleasing action
scenes. James Franco plays Statham’s grinning
redneck adversary with gusto galore. At
one point, he chides Phil Broker because our hero doesn’t “smell the wood
burning” and “cannot connect the dots.” Winona
Ryder gives an electrifying performance as Gator’s scummy ex-convict accomplice
who served time for smuggling narcotics into Angola Prison. Topping both Franco and Ryder is sexy Kate
Bosworth of “Straw Dogs” and “Blue Crush” as a housewife hooked on meth who
ridicules her husband into doing what she cannot. Seasoned character actor Clancy Brown emerges
from the background a corrupt local sheriff who behaves with more discretion
than the usual paid-off politician. Essentially,
nobody gives a bad performance in “Homefront,” and the children are incredibly
convincing, too. Of course, Fleder and
Stallone shoot the works, and Statham displays his usual physical prowess. Basically, if you enjoy watching the “Transporter”
kick the crap out of his antagonists after they threaten his daughter, you’ll
enjoy “Homefront.” The close encounter combat
sequence between our hero and two thugs at a local gas station is hilariously
violent. Statham is quickly turning into
the new Steven Segal with the effortless aplomb with which he dispatches his
opponents. Dutch lenser Theo van de
Sande’s cinematography of the swampy Louisiana locations is simply gorgeous; Sande
shot the Wesley Snipes vampire opus “Blade.”
Clocking in at a nimble 100 minutes, “Homefront” never wears out its
welcome.
No comments:
Post a Comment