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I AM VENGEANCE
Director: Ross Boyask Cast: Stu Bennett, Anna Shaffer, Gary Daniels, Bryan Larkin, Mark Griffin, Keith Allen, Sapphire Elia, Sebastian Knapp MPAA
Rating: Running Time: 1:32 Release Date: 8/24/18 (limited) |
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Review by Mark Dujsik | August 23, 2018 The mysterious protagonist of I Am Vengeance is a man of few actions and even fewer words. He doesn't even have a name until about midway through the movie. He does have a goal, though: It's to avenge the deaths of a friend and the friend's parents, who were murdered by a gang of ex-Special Forces operatives who have taken over the drug trade in a small English town. Could there be anything more clichéd about this setup? There probably could, but maybe it's best to leave well enough alone. The screenplay by director Ross Boyask certainly leaves enough alone. The plot amounts to the eventually named John Gold (Stu Bennett) wandering around town, staring down a bunch of people, occasionally asking questions, and, finally, beating up and killing some bad guys. Boyask handles none of it well. First off, the hero here has no identifiable personality, except that he's mostly silent and, when he does talk, it's to get someone else to state some exposition or to spout some lazy one-liner. Bennett, a former professional wrestler and bareknuckle boxer, isn't given much to do in his first starring role, and that includes fighting. There are a couple of brawls here, all of them shot with little sense of the participants' skill or any kind of momentum. Mostly, the story has John intimidating people, from the gang members to the people who could help him. In the latter category, there's primarily Sandra (Anna Shaffer), a desperate heroin addict who taxis John around town (for a reason that's shaky at best), serves as the movie's uncomfortable comic relief (It's not necessarily that her addiction is the source of all the jokes surrounding her—just a few too many), and becomes the target of John's abuse (He ties her up and locks her in the trunk of a car, after he seriously considers putting a bullet in her head). Treated slightly better is Rose (Shapphire Elia), who runs a local bakery and exists so that John doesn't seem too terrible. He still comes across as a pretty unlikeable guy, though, and that does this redundant and tiresome movie no favors. I Am Vengeance barely goes through the motions in its overlong 90 minutes. Copyright © 2018 by Mark Dujsik. All rights reserved. |
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(for
violence and language throughout, drug use, and a brief nude image)
