'Bullet to the Head'

Alas, shell casings, switchblades and severed limbs are all that's offered in this vile film (* out of four; rated R; opens Friday nationwide), whose sole redeeming quality is that it ends. Eventually.

From its questionable title to its putrid final scene, Bullet doesn't so much feature blood and graphic violence as revel in it.

What, exactly, was star Sylvester Stallone's motive here? He has done solid action films such as Rambo and First Blood, and showed real acting chops in Cop Land and, of course.
This marks a new low for Sly. Gratuitously violent and brimming with slurs against Asians, this may be his first mean-spirited movie. It's certainly his worst.

Based on an obscure French graphic novel, Bullet is a 91-minute excuse to pile up corpses.

Stallone plays Jimmy Bobo, a Louisiana hit man who is proud that, for all his killing, he has been arrested only 28 times and convicted twice. Too bad those convictions didn't carry life sentences.

Just as the title promises, the movie opens with a bullet bursting through the opening credits straight to the face of moviegoers. It's downhill from there.

When we meet Bobo, he and fellow thug Louis (Jon Seda) are posing as cops in order to break into a hotel room to divorce a nemesis from his brain. In a voice-over that channels Vin Diesel's gravelly baritone, Jimmy explains that he has never much liked cops or troubled himself with conscience. The film rationalizes the bloodshed by explaining that he only murders men, never women and kids. And when Louis gets stabbed to death as payback, Bobo decides it's time to ... start killing.

As it happens, Washington, D.C., cop Taylor Kwon (Sung Kang) also lost a lowlife partner, a death that leads him to Bobo's backyard.

The two begin what's supposed to be an odd-couple pairing as they track their respective killers. For humor, Taylor reminds Bobo that he's Korean, though that doesn't stop Bobo from the racial insults, including calling the straight-laced cop Confucius.

That's about as highbrow as Bullet gets. Humor takes a back seat to gore, including autopsy scenes that focus on open chest cavities. Perhaps director Walter Hill (48 Hrs. Red Heat) is looking for the film's heart.

collect..Caribbean Shipping

Edited by Henryrugal - January 31 2013 at 11:21pm