Stanley Hill witnesses the murder of his wife Vivian, who's attacked by thugs in a car park.
Wracked with guilt, Stanley is haunted by the image of Vivian dying. When Detective Gibson and other corrupt police officers are unable to bring the killers to justice, Stanley turns to his old friend Dennis and decides to take matters into his own hands.
Stanley and Dennis have a mysterious past that, until now, they have kept very well hidden.
As they inflict vengeance, those involved in the cover up realise that Stanley and Dennis are more dangerous than they could ever have imagined...
After the amazing success of the Taken franchise, it seems that once big A-list stars are trying to resurgence their career by doing their own vengeance/one man army movie.......geri-action if you would.
Arnie did it with the last act of Sabotage, Cage did his with Tokarev, Costner did his with 3 Days To Kill, and Willis is in talks to do a remake of Death Wish.
And here's Travolta's take on the vengeance movie, and it's a pretty strange movie, considering it's directed by Russell, whom showed a lot of flair with Eraser, The Mask, and even Nightmare On Elm Street 3.
It's strange in the fact that nothing new is offered to the viewer. We have the same corrupt cops trying to protect a high end member of the government. A bad guy with an ulterior motive, and for no reason other than lazily explaining why Stanley is in possession and can access so many weapons.
If it wasn't for this silly plot inclusion, thus making Stanley a human killing machine, instead of making him the Everyman we first thought he was, it would have been just that little more palatable.
Travolta is fine, he can do this type of role, the grieving Husband/Father/Son walking in his sleep, so you'll spend more time looking at his wonderful hairline than his performance, and the action scenes are hilarious, Travolta's stunt double just has his back to the camera while the action is taking place, and it's right out of the Seagal school of poor stunt doubles.
The one liners provided by Dennis, fall flat almost every time, which in turn, makes then the funniest one liners you've heard in a long time, they just seem so out of place when your main character has just lost his soul mate.
For a generic action film, it's fine, it runs along at a steady pace, and provides no surprises for the viewer, just another nuts and bolts action film starring so done who wants to be as famous as he used to be.
But Travolta must have really believed in the script because he gets a tattoo with the films title on his back, and he literally says the films title when he asked who he is.
That is supposed to be one of the more tense moments of the film, but again, it's sadly hilarious.
And for some reason, the ending reminded me of The Shawshank Redemption.
Not terrible by any means, just a little pointless.
