This daft DTV effort benefits from the presence of the ever reliable Ray Liotta but has little else going for it. I wonder if this is the kind of future the young Liotta saw for himself when on the set of Scorsese's Goodfellas: a succession of mostly lame and formulaic crime thrillers with few redeeming features.
Cuba Gooding takes centre stage as Liam Case, a garbage man who enjoys the kind of luck that would have most people reaching for the prozac; his wife and kid drown in a car crash from which he is unable to save them, and the new woman of his dreams ends up with a bullet hole in the head that sends her into a coma. Director Smrz unwisely chooses to play with the chronology of events for no apparent reason other than he's seen it done before and evidently thinks its cool. It used to be cool, now it's become dull through its over-use by directors who don't realise it's nothing more than a gimmick with the shortest of shelf lives.
Fortunately for Smrz he doesn't have to hold his hand up to the increasingly ridiculous twists inserted into the story in an attempt to keep the viewer interested. Case has to be one of the most pathetic heroes we have seen in a long time. The guy actually thinks the best way to get to know that woman of his dreams, who happens to be a bank teller, is to get his friend to stage a robbery so that he can play the hero. I mean, come on, that should be the pitch for a comedy not a 'serious' thriller.
As the film grows increasingly lost, the writers throw every cliché they can think of into the mix and, in the end, we end up with a young kid talking and thinking like an adult while holding a gun on the bad guys.
This is weak and lazy film-making in nearly every way imaginable.
Cuba Gooding takes centre stage as Liam Case, a garbage man who enjoys the kind of luck that would have most people reaching for the prozac; his wife and kid drown in a car crash from which he is unable to save them, and the new woman of his dreams ends up with a bullet hole in the head that sends her into a coma. Director Smrz unwisely chooses to play with the chronology of events for no apparent reason other than he's seen it done before and evidently thinks its cool. It used to be cool, now it's become dull through its over-use by directors who don't realise it's nothing more than a gimmick with the shortest of shelf lives.
Fortunately for Smrz he doesn't have to hold his hand up to the increasingly ridiculous twists inserted into the story in an attempt to keep the viewer interested. Case has to be one of the most pathetic heroes we have seen in a long time. The guy actually thinks the best way to get to know that woman of his dreams, who happens to be a bank teller, is to get his friend to stage a robbery so that he can play the hero. I mean, come on, that should be the pitch for a comedy not a 'serious' thriller.
As the film grows increasingly lost, the writers throw every cliché they can think of into the mix and, in the end, we end up with a young kid talking and thinking like an adult while holding a gun on the bad guys.
This is weak and lazy film-making in nearly every way imaginable.