Bullet to the Head

 

In Bullet to the Head, Sylvester Stallone plays Jimmy "Bobo" Bonomo, the latest in a string of antiheroes that have been starring in action movies lately. (Remember Parker last weekend?) Jimmy is a hitman who gets double crossed early in the film when he pulls off a job with his partner, only to have his partner get stabbed in a bar moments later.  The assailant tries to kill Jimmy also, but fails.  Now the guy wants revenge, and we get to listen to Stallone monologue and narrate the story.  Stallone has never exactly been the most talkative type, and hearing him trying to narrate is the first of many of this film's unintentional laughs.

Next, we meet a cop named Taylor Kwon (Sung Kang), who is going to end up being Jimmy's sidekick for most of the movie.  Yes, Bullet to the Head is a buddy action movie, at least it's intended to be.  Heck, the movie even has Walter Hill as the director, who made 48 Hours, one of the great buddy action films of all time.  The problem is that Stallone and Kang have about as much chemistry together as a lump of coal and an ice cube.  I know that the guys are on opposite sides of the law, and there's obviously supposed to be tension between them as they are forced to work together.  But there's just absolutely no spark in their performances, and no sense that these actors even want to be sharing the same screen.  It doesn't help that most of Stallone's dialogue to Kang is loaded with mildly racist stereotypes, such as "I'll be waiting, Confucius", or "Nice going, Oddjob".

It doesn't help that as far as sidekicks go, the character of Taylor Kwon is one of the weakest in recent memory, due to the fact the film gives him so little to do.  If you're a sidekick in a Stallone movie, and you're forced to sit in the car and listen to the radio while Stallone goes off and kills some bad guys, you know you're getting the short end of the stick.  The movie seems tailor made to be a vehicle to prove that Stallone is still the action star he was back in the 80s.  Heck, the script for this film reads like it's been sitting in some writer's drawer since 1987 or so, and has been mildly updated with references to cell phones and flash drives. (The script is actually based on a graphic novel.)  The movie is your standard revenge plot, with both Jimmy and Taylor forced to work together after their respective partners are killed by the same people, and they uncover a ring of dirty cops and corrupt political and law figures.  As the bad guys, we get Christian Slater giving a hilariously over the top performance as a crooked lawyer, and a muscle-bound mercenary (Jason Momoa) who has a thing for knives and axes.

Movies like this obviously need a token female character.  Here, we get Sarah Shahi as Stallone's adult daughter, Lisa.  Like the sidekick, she's given very little to do, until she's forced to become a hostage to the villains in the third act, so Stallone will have motivation to go their hideout and blow everyone away.  She also supposedly develops a relationship with Taylor, but it's virtually non-existent, and feels like a majority of their scenes were left on the editing room floor.  I guess their relationship had to be pushed aside, so that there would be more time devoted to Stallone walking into rooms, and shooting people in the head, which earns the film its title.  The film had a very troubled production, complete with the original director before Hill came aboard leaving early on after clashing with Stallone over the tone of the film, and even his original co-star being replaced.  Its many problems show, as it feels like the movie has been hacked and edited in order to salvage what the filmmakers knew was a doomed project.

Bullet to the Head will obviously be compared to The Last Stand, the Arnold Schwarzenegger comeback vehicle from only a couple weeks ago that's already gone from most theaters.  I was one of the supporters of the Schwarzenegger movie.  It was an action throwback that managed to be fun and have a sense of humor about itself.  Stallone's movie, on the other hand, chooses to take itself deadly seriously, which is a big mistake in my mind.  This is a grim, bloody, nasty, and joyless movie.  The action is not fun, there's nothing to get excited about here, and the on-screen chemistry of Stallone and Kang is so off-key, even their dialogue together that is intended to get laughs falls completely flat.  There's just something so lifeless about this movie.  You know the film's in trouble when the most thrilling moment occurs during the studio screen right at the beginning, featuring a bullet flying through the Warner Bros. logo.

 

The movie is simply too mean spirited and grim to be any real fun.  At 66-years-old, Stallone still can carry an action movie.  He still has the physique for it, despite the fact his face seems even stiffer and less expressive than its ever been, if you can possibly believe it.  He simply needs to find a better script, and maybe not be so afraid to let his co-stars grab the spotlight once in a while.  Bullet to the Head feels like a retro vanity project that went horribly wrong.

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