You know the guy… tortured war vet, only
dreams of his dead colleagues he left behind, over-trained by
our government to do just one thing, that being the ability
kill people just by thinking real hard. That guy.
Released to the general public and probably living next
door. Or in my own personal case, a guy I call
'Dad'. He's better now though. Today that guy is
John Chapman and he is being played by Michael Jai White in
the movie 'Falcon Rising'. Michael Jai White kicking
people in the face and shooting them in the brain. Is
there any way that this combination won't entertain? No
sir… betting against this one not to deliver at least some
form of basic entertainment would be a sucker bet.
As mentioned, John Chapman starts every week by loading a
couple bullets into his revolver, spinning it, putting the
barrel in his mouth and pulling the trigger. He's not in
his happy space right now. And if he fails at killing
himself, then he does curls. Even though he's suicidal…
fitness first.
Then his baby sister Cindy (Laila Ali) pays a visit and all is
right for a little while for big John. Sure, she's a
social worker in crazy violent Sao Paolo Brazil, but what bad
could possibly happen when goes back after her visit with big
brother?
Well somebody in Brazil done beat poor Cindy near to death,
news delivered to John by his ex-handler Manny Ridley (Neal
McDonough), and if ever there was a little sister that
should've been left alone… it was this guy's
sister. Now it's time to take a quick trip to Sao
Paolo and ask some questions. Kind of. Chapman
isn't really much of an interrogator, truth be told. But
what my man is good at is killing people, and by golly, the
streets of Brazil are gonna run bright red. Why did the
bad people put baby sis in a coma that she may or may not come
out of? Is that really
important in a movie like this? No it is not. All
we needed was an excuse to unleash the weapon, and hope that
we enjoy our time watching people die in an awesome way.
'Falcon Rising' fulfilled that simple desire, thank you very
much.
I'm talking to my action fans here, a
dwindling demographic we are over here, if ever there was a
dwindling demographic. We kind of know what we are going
to get when we toss our VOD dollar on the table in regards to
the movie we are about to watch. We know with Seagal
we're getting a lot of his skinny stuntman, and the movie will
be marginally entertaining at best. We know Scott Adkins
is going to bring the awesome, but it would be nice if he were
a little better actor. Dolph and JCVD are constants who
usually deliver in the clutch in various ways… but Michael Jai
White? This guy here is almost money in the bank.
Yeah that 'Android Cop' movie was suspect, but it was The
Asylum mockbusting Robocop so what can you expect from that?
Now I'm not saying the director Ernie Barbrash's 'Falcon
Rising' is the be to end all of action movies, but it delivers
most of what we hope to see in one of these movies, and this
is largely due to its dynamic star.
Mr. White can run and jump and kick with the best of them, and
not only does he makes that stuff that he does look real, he's
also probably has the best acting chops of any our VOD action
heroes to date. Not that the role of John Chapman really
pushed the envelope. Over-trained, tortured government
badass on a quest for revenge. Stop me if you've heard
that story before. Usually there is some bigger picture
in which our completely bad guys are trafficking something, be
it guns… drugs… bootleg DVD's… here its little Brazilian
girls. Trafficking little girls is just awful, but they
could've been trafficking marshmallows and John Chapman still
would've stabbed the bad guys in the brain.
The supporting characters also helped sell this nonsense a
little better as well, though Neal McDonough, as awesome an
actor as he is, was kind of wasted in this. Could've
gotten anybody to do what he did in this movie. Same for
Laila Ali, if only because she's Laila Ali and she's a fighter
so I kind of expected her to do a little fighting, but it
wasn't to be. No, the best performances were offered up
by Jimmy Navarro as the cool cop semi-helping Chapman on the
case, even though just by looking at the guy he looked like he
was up to no good, and also Masashe Odate as our main heavy,
and a really smooth bad guy. Probably not smooth enough
to make it out this movie alive, but smooth nonetheless.
And Lateef Crowder shows up doing that thing he does and doing
it well. He's probably gonna get beat to death
too. I wonder who would win in a real fight between
Michael Jai White and Lateef Crowder?
'Falcon Rising' does have its flaws as a work of cinema, most
of these being the fairly typical, outlandish, ridiculous,
insane issues that are present in almost every action movie
ever made, even the great ones… which this one isn't… but it
is an entertaining one. Word is this might be the start
of a franchise. Well we sure hope so, because the
dwindling demographic needs stuff like this to keep us going.
