Writer: Siti Munawirah Mustaffa

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Watch this if you liked: “The Cold Light Of Day”

If the movie name does not sound inspiring enough and added by the fact that it went straight to DVD, then chances are it is not blockbuster material. Josh Duhamel's Jeremy Coleman the fireman would normally expect the people he saves to trust him when caught in a fire. The reviewer, on the other hand, prefers you to trust your instincts.

Speaking of which, what did the reviewer's guts tell her when the film was about to roll?

Perhaps the 90 minutes' worth of storytelling are not so completely bad, after all - not too short to allow the leap of one action after the other and not too long to render it excruciating for the viewers' mind to take. Under the direction of David Barrett, Bruce Willis (who plays a cop by the name of Mike Cella) seems to be the obvious catch for the bare-knuckled fist fighting, road rash and pistol-fetish junkies; only this time, the veteran actor who nowadays seems to take up any offer for a measly pay check serves as a minor role.

At the start of the film, Jeremy Coleman and his team of firemen complete another heroic act by putting out fire and helping trapped civilians. Contemplating on having a celebration among them with ice-cold liquor, the handsome main cast later finds his life coming to a drastic change right after becoming a witness to a gruesome murder committed by swastika-tattooed David Hagan (Vincent D'Onofrio) right inside a convenient store. Now, Hagan is not exactly your ordinary shoot-and-rob kind of killer, for he is a wanted criminal long known for his list of heinous acts and the only way to finally get him behind bars is by putting Jeremy in a witness protection program i.e. no more career, no identity and no life. In those difficult moments, Jeremy finds comfort in Talia Durham (Rosario Dawson), an attractive Deputy United States Marshal assigned to the case.

As earlier mentioned by the reviewer, the 90 minutes could not be that much excruciating so the guts that told her the film is going to be another horrid flick of the same genre have not been proven entirely correct. At least the first half of the film seems almost interesting enough, before the pace gets lazy as the mission to hunt down a cold-blooded white nationalist eventually turns into 'love defeats all barriers no matter how distant and how dangerous because she is just worth the trouble' melodrama. Known for her feisty personality and ability to take down any man twice her size, it feels pretty awkward to see Dawson being the kidnapped damsel in distress. Talk about going on a different wavelength.

Perhaps it is understandable why the film went to Blu-ray instead of silver screen because really, there is nothing much to boast about except for how sexy Duhamel still looks, even while vomiting. Well, at least the quick-paced action and nail-pulling torture manages to somehow overcompensate for what could have otherwise been a painfully monotonous thriller. There is no harm in watching it because if you trust the reviewer enough, you will realise that there are some really worse ones.

Cinema Online, 09 January 2013