**
Boston cop uncovers corporate and government corruption in his vengeful search for the man who gunned down his daughter. What he fails to find, however, is a reason for us to believe a single thing that happens in this movie. From the moment Thomas Craven (Mel Gibson) is allowed to work the case, we know we’re headed into fairyland. And it just gets progressively more implausible as it goes along, until Craven is pointing guns at corporate bigwigs and threatening high government officials as if they had no more protection than local pimps and drug dealers. Gibson does well as a dad on a mission of justice, but the story’s too convoluted and the conspiracy goes too high to be supported by emotionalism alone. And all Craven’s got to fall back on is his aging tough-guy cop status, which, at one point, even he admits wouldn’t be enough to keep him alive ten minutes if he were up against real professionals, instead of the collection of facile dunderheads in this movie.
"[The movie] lurches forward like a battered old Chevy being started in third gear." - Tim Robey, The Telegraph, 28 Jan 2010
Boston cop uncovers corporate and government corruption in his vengeful search for the man who gunned down his daughter. What he fails to find, however, is a reason for us to believe a single thing that happens in this movie. From the moment Thomas Craven (Mel Gibson) is allowed to work the case, we know we’re headed into fairyland. And it just gets progressively more implausible as it goes along, until Craven is pointing guns at corporate bigwigs and threatening high government officials as if they had no more protection than local pimps and drug dealers. Gibson does well as a dad on a mission of justice, but the story’s too convoluted and the conspiracy goes too high to be supported by emotionalism alone. And all Craven’s got to fall back on is his aging tough-guy cop status, which, at one point, even he admits wouldn’t be enough to keep him alive ten minutes if he were up against real professionals, instead of the collection of facile dunderheads in this movie.
"[The movie] lurches forward like a battered old Chevy being started in third gear." - Tim Robey, The Telegraph, 28 Jan 2010
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