Star fails to shine because of revenge
Bakang Israel | Friday June 26, 2015 14:17
This has become the norm for action lovers, and also because his films are always driven by meaningful yet violent themes such as human trafficking, abuse, organised crime and so forth.
He is back and this time he is driven by revenge. With regard to this one, Wild Card is 2015 American crime thriller book adaptation film based on the HEAT a 1985 novel by William Goldman.
It is directed by Simon West one of Hollywood’s finest film architects having directed the 90 ‘s blockbuster Con Air starring Nicolas Cage.
The spine of this film is like this, “A Las Vegas bodyguard with lethal professional skills and a personal gambling problem is drawn into a web of criminal underworld, after a friend is beaten up by a sadistic thug.
Nick (Statham) strikes back, only to find out the thug is the son of a powerful mob boss. Now, Nick has one last play to change his fortunes. It’s all or nothing.
Further along, the film’s characters include tough man Nick (Jason Statham) a bodyguard who has landed in hot water facing a hard time from the mob particularly Milo Ventimiglia as (Danny DeMarco).
Wild Card had all the necessary ingredients such as plot, cast and directors to make a mouthwatering movie experience. However it failed to turn into the recipe movie enthusiasts longed for.
The movie is very much inconsistent and very full of loopholes as whilst watching, you constantly lose the plot.
It is one of those experiences that you end up yawning whilst watching. For instance, Wild Card starts off with Statham drinking at a bar before starting a mini fight.
It later turned out that the fight was organised in order to help one fellow win back his girlfriend, which is reminiscent to Will Smith’s Hitch movie role. However, this one was poorly done even the surprise element.
Worth noting in this film are themes such as friendship, gender violence- abuse -rape as well as gambling addictions amongst others.
This brings us to the plot of the film. It has a good plot, however for a Statham movie judging by his standards from his previous film such as The Transporter. Wild Card wasn’t well orchestrated into screenplay.
This can be justified by factors such as the fact that the film is also way too cagey. We see Holly (Dominik García-Lorido) beaten up pretty bad by the so-called movie villains that we only hear of until midway through the film.
It is only then when we get to see to Danny DeMarco (Milo Ventimiglia) the menacing little man. So that’s another bad deed about the film,. It has a bold catchy name and trailer but no actual content.
Also the film is failed by the fact that it has no follow-through. You see Holly once at the beginning of the film after Nick’s help to do her dirty deeds. After that she disappears into thin air.
A good film would have made her character relevant though, as she is the root of all turmoil. You would have expected the Mafia to go after her as well rather than her cameo appearance.
Completing this bad recipe of a film is the picture quality. Even though you are watching it on a big screen, the film isn’t very well visible as it look as if you are watching a pirated content with poor picture quality.
Meanwhile, however the only positive side about the film is the stunts, as you know Jason Statham when it comes to fighting.
Most notably the only few moments of spark that left viewers amazed include this scene.
In a fight against the mob bodyguards, taking down the entire gang that was armed with guns whilst only using his lethal skills coupled with a teaspoon and a dinner knife.
That was a bit fun to watch. Overall, it was a horrendous experience as viewers from Inside Out animation enjoyed their money’s worth whilst ours seemed to have gone down the drain.
Movie reactions from a couple after the screening
Lopang Morekisi: The film was that bad
Letang Malanga: I personally enjoyed the film though am not an action fan
Wild Card made its international release back in January 2015. So it has long slipped out of the box chart.
However figures coming from box office also add more fuel to the flames with regard to this movie being a total flop.
The film was produced from an estimated $30 million dollar budget, but failed to even generate a quarter of this amount as it only grossed $1,6 million worldwide.
Movie: Wild Card
Genre: Action| Crime | Drama
Duration: 1hour 32mins
Age Restriction: 16
Release Date: 19th June
Director: Simon West
Main Cast: Jason Statham (Nick Wild), Dominik García-Lorido (Holly) and Milo Ventimiglia (Danny DeMarco)
This suggested that it was total trash.
The week’s Box Office chart number one has firmly stood its ground.
1. Jurassic World
2. Inside Out
3. Spy
4. San Andreas
5. Dope
This one was just bark from the trailer with no actual movie sting. If there is an alternative movie rather watch it instead. 4/10