I was very disappointed with this, considering that I love John Woo, but the story and dialogue are so full of holes, contradictory and hypocritical that I just turned it off...
In every single other John Woo film I've seen, characters have been well fleshed out and reasonably likable (both bad and good characters too) and whilst I had no problem with most of the main cast (Sandrine Holt being particularly pleasing) the main character played by Ivan Sergei was so stupid and ridiculous that I found myself calling him "git-face" every time he was on screen. His motives, lines and general dialogue were so stupid, contradictory, lying, and self-serving it was unbelievable that a women such as Holt's character would ever find him attractive, and I'm afraid I just didn't like the actor on first view, like I just took and instant dislike to him, thats just the way it is sometimes but I expect John Woo to cast just the right people for his works.
This feels like Woo was just going through the motions and that it might be just a contractual obligation of some kind...not even the action scenes are that good and also few and far between. It feels more like Woo was an 'executive producer' than at the helm on this one.
In every single other John Woo film I've seen, characters have been well fleshed out and reasonably likable (both bad and good characters too) and whilst I had no problem with most of the main cast (Sandrine Holt being particularly pleasing) the main character played by Ivan Sergei was so stupid and ridiculous that I found myself calling him "git-face" every time he was on screen. His motives, lines and general dialogue were so stupid, contradictory, lying, and self-serving it was unbelievable that a women such as Holt's character would ever find him attractive, and I'm afraid I just didn't like the actor on first view, like I just took and instant dislike to him, thats just the way it is sometimes but I expect John Woo to cast just the right people for his works.
This feels like Woo was just going through the motions and that it might be just a contractual obligation of some kind...not even the action scenes are that good and also few and far between. It feels more like Woo was an 'executive producer' than at the helm on this one.