BRUCE WILLIS became one of the top action titans of the 90s after his “Die Hard” became a blockbuster in 1988.
His character, John McClane, became quite an icon who starred in four sequels.
Bruce starred in other blockbusters like “Armageddon”, “The Last Boy Scout” and the acclaimed “The Sixth Sense”.
But in the last decade, his career declined and he started doing straight-to-video low budget action movies like “Precious Cargo”, “First Kill”, “Reprisal”, “Survive the Night”, “Out of Death” and many more, some of which we have reviewed.
He now stars in “Wrong Place”, one of the four direct-to-video movies he completed before it was announced that he is retiring since he got diagnosed with aphasia, brain damage caused by stroke or head trauma that affects a person’s ability to understand language or to talk.
What a sad fate for one of the top actors of his generation.
We just saw “Wrong Place”, written by Bill Lawrence and directed by Mike Burns, who also did ‘Out of Death’ last year, a quickie set in the forest.
We can’t help but watched “Wrong Place” with a heavy heart, as Bruce seemed more like a mere ghost of what he used to be and you get more concerned about his personal health than what his character goes through in the movie.
Bruce plays Frank, a former police chief in Alabama who now works as a security guard in a pawnshop.
Earlier, he lost his wife in a fatal car accident and their daughter, Chloe (Ashley Greene), also gets stricken with the Big C.
A year later, Frank witnesses a drug dealer, Virgil (Massi Furlaw), killing another man at the back of their pawn shop.
He gets to shoot Virgil in the leg and the cops arrive to arrest him. Virgil’s son, Jake (Michael Sirow), sees how his dad gets arrested because of Frank’s intervention.
With his dad in jail, Jake plots his vengeance on Frank.
He follows him in his cabin the woods.
It so happened that then on vacation with her friend, Tammy (Stacy Danger), and gets to hostage them to get to Frank.
This is where the movie becomes a comedy of errors.
Jake turns out to be a stupid idiot who makes a lot of fumbles, with Chloe putting one over him, not just once but several times.
There was an instance where he is shot and you thought he’s dead but he turns out to be alive again later to sow more havoc.
And this happens not just once but twice.
The police chief who replaced Frank tries to rescue them but is quickly shot by Jake who throws him into a pit. You’d think he’s dead but then, he again turns up again later to get back to Jake just as he is about to shoot Frank.
One thing with this throwaway movie is that you never get to really root for someone, not even for Frank or Chloe.
And the actors seem like they’re just eager to have the shooting over and done with.
You also cannot totally hate the main villain, Jake, because he is just a plain low rent moron doing acts of utter stupidity.
