Our latest watch was L.A. Vengeance, a direct to DVD film that would make you think it’s a tough action thriller, with its tagline of Hang Together or Die Alone, showing 2 of its Stars Bruce Willis and Jason Momoa heavily armed.
However the cast made us think it seemed very much like an action comedy we had seen a trailer for, but that was called Once Upon a Time in Venice!
It turns out they obviously were the same film and the title has been changed. To make it more confusing, we have also now seen it called Vengeance: A Love Story! However, luckily not knowing this information, we hadn’t rushed out to buy it and ended up winning a copy through Caution Spoilers film blog!
But was our wait worthwhile? Sadly, it seems to be another film where Bruce Willis may have done the role for the money, it’s certainly no The Last Boy Scout, a much better action comedy he made, but it is at least certainly watchable.
We follow Steve (Willis), a down on his luck PI who seems to hang around skateboard parks or goes surfing whilst his PI partner and also acts as the narrator of the film, John (Thomas Middleditch) does most of the work.
John finds Nola (Jessica Gomes) a missing person in a case Steve has taken on. When Steve meets Nola, he sleeps with her (this seems to appear all that Gomes, a former model was needed for, as doesn’t add much to the plot, presumably she was needed to get nudity into the film, although it does feature a scene of Bruce escaping with only a gun covering his modesty)
When they find out about Nola and Steve, the 2 brothers who hired him, subsequently want ‘L.A. Vengeance’
He then tries to get a car back for a friend from heavy drug dealer Spider (Momoa) by crashing it out of his garage. With so much damage done, Spider’s crew retaliates by stealing from Steve’s ex-wife Katey (Famke Janssen) and daughter Taylor (Emily Robinson) amongst the sellable goods laptops and TV etc they also take Buddy, Steve’s dog!
What follows is a storyline which will see Steve work for Spider to get back some stolen drugs or pay him $4000, which will see him borrow money from A ruthless loan shark, who want to be paid back in a day.
As well as subplots that see him trying to find out who is doing pornographic graffiti on sides of buildings which could stop a large property deal, whilst also offering support to Dave (John Goodman) whose marriage has collapsed and also trying to avoid Nola’s brothers, whilst still sleeping with her.
Whilst all this goes on, familiar faces turn up and go almost as quickly as they appeared, Kal Penn as a storekeeper; Elisabeth Rohm as Dave’s wife; Christopher McDonald as the hirer of the graffiti artist; Singer Tyga as the artist; Ken Davitan as the loan shark; Adam Goldberg as Lew the Jew, the seller whose deal cold fail due to the graffiti and incredibly random David Arquette as someone who just meets Steve in the street.
Written and directed by The Cullen Brothers, this could have been a good film but instead is a remotely average one, in part due to its lead character is just not that likable.
It’s a shame that Willis, once a bonafide action star now seems to settle for making these smaller direct to DVD films but maybe his teaming up with Eli Roth on the forthcoming Death Wish remake could improve the situation
Overall L.A. Vengeance is an easy yet instantly forgettable watch. On a plus side Buddy the dog was cute!
Watch the trailer here:
Buy the film from Amazon here:
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