(This review was originally published on February 1, 2013 at Reel Film News)
Sylvester Stallone plays disgruntled hitman Jimmy ‘Bobo’ Bonomo in “Bullet to the Head”, a pseudo-noir action flick that is really hard to take seriously. Director Walter Hill’s attempt at gritty realism is hindered by the central relationship of the story, which begins with Stallone’s cold-blooded contract killer crossing paths with a Washington, DC detective (played by Sung Kang of “Fast Five”) during a homicide investigation in New Orleans. The result is an unbalanced, poorly edited mess which finds the two men working together to take down a common enemy (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, BBC’s “Hunted”) and a ruthless mercenary named Keegan (Jason Momoa, 2011‘s “Conan the Barbarian”) who’s been contracted to do all the dirty work. Of course it comes across as an extremely simple premise; the stabbing death of Bonomo’s partner that triggers the whole thing is one barely significant variable in an ultra-contrived real estate development scheme (with the requisite smattering of police corruption, of course) that doesn’t even seem feasible in a world of acceptable plot holes. Seriously, when will bad guys learn to stop carrying around their secret plans on a flash drive?
Of the film’s many flaws, though, the cookie-cutter concept and Neanderthal mentality are not the most irritating, especially considering what we should expect from the next entry in Stallone’s latter-day career resurgence (and after suffering through the ridiculous “The Expendables 2”). In fact, this might have all worked out as a perfectly respectable action film if even the slightest attention had been paid to the duo’s chemistry; accepting that these guys could co-exist for more than five minutes (in the close quarters of a car and with weapons, no less), is exhausting all on its own. Do they really need each other that bad? Kang is so low-key that it seems like he’s perpetually fighting off the effects of an Ambien, and Stallone incessantly mumbles archaic racial slurs like a bullfrog on Quaaludes (perhaps channeling Walt from “Grand Torino”). At least in that film, such dialogue served a purpose; here it seems that Alessandro Camon’s script just needed some filler, or perhaps a reason for Kang, who is Korean, to rib Stallone, who’s now 66, about his age. Either way, the creative mindset here could be summed up with a couple of excerpts from ‘Truly Tasteless Jokes’; it’s almost too dim-witted to be offensive.
When it’s not subjecting us to the sleepy verbal exchanges of the cranky, gun-toting odd couple, “Bullet to the Head” manages a few decent action sequences (and a small, hatable performance by Christian Slater as a maniacal sleazebag). The violence is heavy and often overdone, and though it seems like Hill was going for a sort of mobster-esque brutality, the manufactured grittiness begins to feel a little spoofy (anyone who’s seen the trailer will know that there’s an axe battle in there. ‘Nuff said.). Plus, it turns out that Bobo isn’t as big a sociopath as we might have thought; not a big surprise, since Stallone is supposed to be the film’s main protagonist, but it’s too bad, because “Bullet” would have been much better as a ruthless one-man revenge flick than the half-assed buddy picture it turned out to be. In that vein, the film attempts to find some depth when we’re introduced to his daughter (Sarah Shahi, USA Network’s “Fairly Legal”), a tattoo artist who we think might be there to elicit some emotion from Stallone’s character; as it turns out she’s only around as collateral (and for Kang to ogle like he’s in first grade), but it softens the film’s impact nonetheless.
While the film isn’t busy over-justifying its title, it forgets about almost everything else. Hill’s penchant for pugilistic partnerships exemplified in “48 Hrs.”, another bi-racial, cop/criminal ‘buddy’ picture, seems to have faded over the last three decades; perhaps it’s because times have changed, but the dynamic in “Bullet to the Head” is woefully flat and immature by comparison.
