Displaying items by tag: Bruce Willis

WRONG PLACE

US, 2022, 96 minutes, Colour.

Ashley Greene, Bruce Willis, Michael Sirow, Texas Battle, Massi Furlan, Adam Huel Potter, Lauren Schiff.

Directed by Mike Burns.

The main reason for seeing this thriller is to see and complete all the films featuring Bruce Willis. From the mid-2010s he appeared in quite a number of films every year, sometime starring, sometimes supporting, sometimes guest roles, but mainly in thrillers. And, they did not generally receive very favourable reviews – as is the case here.

And this is one of the 11 films released in 2022 with Bruce Willis in the cast. He was then diagnosed with aphasia and retired from films.

The film opens with a husband and wife in a restaurant, The husband a police officer, drinking, a car crash and the death of his wife, his grief, resignation, getting a security job in a store. This focus but there is also the plot issue of his daughter and her cancer diagnosis, her coming to see him with her girlfriend.

In the meantime, there are drug dealers, pursuits, shooting of a dealer, a father and son involved in the shootout, and also Bruce Willis as security guard observing and intervening.

Which means then that Bruce Willis is being pursued, the attacking father in hospital, his son bent on vengeance, getting information about the daughter, holding the two women to ransom.

There is also a complication in his successor, African-American police chief, discussions between the two, his helping the pursuit, getting shot, surviving, saving the day.

In many ways, a routine thriller with several subplot items – and Bruce Willis looking his serious and stern self, self-sacrificing.

CORRECTIVE MEASURES

US, 2022, 106 minutes, Colour.

Michael Rooker, Tom Cavanagh, Dan Payne, Brendan Mejia, Bruce Willis, Kevin Zegers, Celia Aloma, Haley Sales, Kat Ruston.

Directed by Sean Patrick O'Reilly.

The title suggests a film about prisons. And, it is.

However, this is a future world, a world created by graphic novels, as is this film. There are disasters all around the world (and an early news flash indicates that Australia may have disappeared!). Throughout the film there are inserts of television news flashes, continued disasters – but some comic bickering between announces, the top male announcer continually correcting his female assistant with her grammar.

At the film opens with a brutal attack by a strong hero-figure, killing a whole squad of violent killers. Then he is arrested, sentenced to a high security prison. And, it emerges that this is a government prison for men (not women) who have some kind of superpowers. If their lower leg is constricted by a brace, they are unable to exercise their power.

As the film goes on, we see a variety of superpowers, confronting behaviour amongst the prisoners, but also some sympathetic prisoners including Gordon, who has a capacity for conducting electricity, and the young prisoner, Diego, who superpower is to create an atmosphere of empathy. There is also a sympathetic large male with a distorted face. And, there is Bruce Willis, his last performance before his retirement from films, sadly, with dementia.

And, overall is the rather cynical prison warden, Michael Rooker playing it to the hilt. Kevin Segars is a brutal but somewhat done guard. Celia Aloma has ambitions to become the warden successor. There are some nice people on the staff, especially a sympathetic doctor. And there is a hyper brutal guard played by Kat Ruston.

The drama of the film consists of the warden preparing for his retirement and luxurious life after prison. His trying to deal with Bruce Willis’s character, allegedly wealthy, who superpower is rather mysterious. Several scenes of interrogation and interplay.

The climax is quite brutal as well. Somehow though Bruce Willis’s character is able to unlock some of the leg braces and so there is mayhem in the yard and throughout the prison as violent prisoners attack each other with their powers, also attacking the guards.

This seems to be a mysterious moment in the interview between the warden and Bruce Willis where, suddenly, Bruce Willis seems to have lost his power and is lying down, leaving the warden free after the mayhem escaped to his retirement.

The final twist, and audiences have to be alert to see it, just a simple look in the rear vision mirror to appreciate what has happened, an excellent twist at the end of quite a brutal film experience.

ASSASSIN

US, 2023, 88 minutes, Colour.

Andy Allo, Nomzamo Mbatha, Bruce Willis, Dominic Purcell, Mustafa Shakir, Fernanda Andrade.

Directed by Jesse Atlas.

Sadly, this was Bruce Willis’s last film before he had to retire, loss of memory, aphasia. He will be remembered best from his earlier films and his Die Hard franchise and his venturing into a range of experimental films with top directors in the 1990s. In his later years, he made several of this kind of film every year, B-budget, B-plots, many of them forgettable.

The plot here is extremely convoluted and requires audience attention.

The focus is on a special Ops warrior who discovers her husband in coma. She is angry. However, she is informed that she is part of a special operation, very much in the science-fiction realm, a military operation with a special chip which can alter the personality when it is inserted, but also enables a person to assume other personalities, enter into other scenarios, with the incantation “this is not my body”.

In a remote centre, Bruce Willis is in charge of the operation. The special Ops warrior then is immersed in a cold bath, a machine set on her, and she is able then to assume the personality, conscious of her own as well, sent to confront a rival played by Dominic Purcell.

The action is mainly at the remote centre, the cold bath and ice, and the subject continually returning there after her encounters with the target.

Ultimately, there will be violence, her husband reappearing, giving an explanation for his disappearance, her being upset, some shooting.

The film runs for only 88 minutes.