72 HOURS - Mark Reviews Movies

72 Hours, Brainstorm Media

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Review by Mark Dujsik | October 31, 2024

Co-writer/director Christian Sesma gives us a good sense of the limited intentions and storytelling of 72 Hours with its opening scene. It's an FBI mission to stop some criminals that becomes a shootout. What are the criminals doing? It's something to do with an illegal arms deal with cryptocurrency, and that's all we need to know, apparently. There's a lot of shooting at a motel, resulting in an undercover agent being killed, and while all of this might seem simple and straightforward, the editing of the sequence is so choppy that things, especially all of that shooting, seem removed from any coherent context.

The whole movie has that feeling, as Sesma and Sean Crayne's script plays more like an outline for the idea of a thriller. There are heroes and anti-heroes and a villain, who's meant to be the most dastardly of dastards but seems more preoccupied with having water-based sex with various women. We meet Tye Revello (Pierson Fode) in the middle of a threesome in his shower, ignoring the dire warning of one of his stooges that the criminal mastermind's boss wants to talk to him right now. As his entire operation seems on the verge of complete collapse, Tye also takes some time to canoodle with a woman in a hot tub. He has his priorities, at least, and the movie has its, too.

Those priorities, though, don't include communicating the plot or giving us more than a fleeting sense of its characters. The sole hero here is Sebastian (Sam Trammell), the FBI agent in charge of the disastrous opening operation, who takes it as a sign that it's finally time to retire. He explains that to his brother Alex (Cam Gigandet), an inordinately wealthy man with a wife (played by Jana Kramer) and 16-year-old daughter (played by Laneya Grace), at the teen's birthday party. Considering what we learn about Alex a couple of scenes later, it's notable that the law-enforcement veteran doesn't find anything odd about his brother's mysterious fortune, but this isn't a movie about intelligent people doing smart things based on their expertise and what's right in front of them.

It's difficult to determine what the movie actually wants to do, really, because it does just become a string of scenes hinting at a plot and characters that simply wants to get at a final shootout with as little effort as possible. The basics of the poor excuse for a plot have Sebastian discovering that his brother is the money launderer for Tye's enterprise, Alex stealing a hard drive from the criminal (for reasons, we have to assume), and Tye abducting Alex's daughter. Tye gives him 72 hours to return the drive, or he'll murder the girl. Well, he might get around to that if Tye can separate himself from his water sports.

This seems simple, right? It is, technically, because the stakes, the deadline, and the goal are obvious. Alex has to ask Sebastian for help in rescuing the girl, and despite feeling betrayed by Alex, the brother agrees, because family is family.

What does the screenplay do with this setup, once it finally is revealed after a lot of dithering about? It dithers some more, as Sebastian recruits a trio of former criminals he knows from his work.

They're Tessa (Nicky Whelan), Johnny (Alexander Kane), and Vincent (Vernon Davis), and that's all the information one needs to know, because it's all the screenplay gives us. The recruiting sequence gives the three allies more to say and do than the rest of the movie, which has these seemingly vital characters stand in the background and offer the occasional moral support, before one of them is killed in a completely avoidable setup and the other two shoot a lot of anonymous henchmen during the climactic showdown.

It's very strange to see a movie that doesn't have much in the way of a plot somehow find a way to do even less with it. Like its characters, the material has no personality of which to speak, since, also like the characters, its only purpose is to slowly move toward that final shootout. The fraternal conflict, between a man of the law and another who breaks it, is intriguing, but it's completely resolved by one character reminding them that they have to work together to save the girl. Is that reminder for the benefit of the characters, us, or, since the script has become so distracted by delaying the inevitable, the filmmakers?

The climax is choreographed better than the opening shootout, since we can tell where the players are, at least. 72 Hours doesn't offer much, obviously, if the only positive virtue is that eventually does something basically coherent and slightly significant.

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