Live Wire

This film can only be misjudged these days. "Live Wire" comes from a time when coming up with the most showy ideas and putting into a movie were something fun for our eyes to see and for audiences enjoy it as if it was the coolest thing ever created. And it has Pierce Brosnan a little before Bond, already showing up some skills when it comes to be a great action hero and a sexy ladies man.

He plays Danny O'Neill, a bomb disposal expert with lots of trouble to deal (which includes the alleged love affair his wife is having with a Senator) when a maniac (Ben Cross) decides to eliminate political targets by using a liquid explosive that is practically invisible to eyes. And one of the targets is...the Senator (played by Ron Silver). I haven't said much but I guess you already can form scenes, situations, establish connections and see how this is going to end. Ridiculously predictable to make you feel sick.

The biggest achievement of "Live Wire" is seeing the use of the invisible explosive that is easily ingested and later causes a lot of damages and deaths. It doesn't end without some shock, very similar to a heart-attack, then the eyes start to get read and boom! The courtroom scene is terrifying, just to give an example.

It's fun to watch. The cast is good, they are suitable and comfortable in their roles and they save the script of being a whole mess. Speaking of the script, this had one of the worst plot holes ever presented on screen that even a kid can easily detect: the fighting between Danny and Tony Plana's character in the fountain scene. How come such writer comes up in developing such a tense moment with these two fighting, alternately drowning each other in the explosive water but only one pays the price and blow up to pieces? How does one expect to get away with this?

With all those obstacles this manages to be thrilling, funny (specially the robot trained to find bombs who has a crush on Brosnan's character or the whole city knowing about the infidelities of his wife) and there's reasonable action sequences. Highpoint of the movie: the duel in the house where Pierce has the chance to demonstrate he knows everything about bombs, improvising explosive devices to kill the bad guys.

Goofy, relatively dumb but who cares, this is good. Don't take it too seriously and you'll see what's so good about it. 7/10

STAR RATING:*****Unmissable****Very Good***Okay**You Could Go Out For A Meal Instead*Avoid At All Costs

Danny O'Neill (Pierce Brosnan) is a bomb disposal expert.He's your typical cynical,hard-bitten good guy type,chewing on a cigar and uttering hard-edged one liners.Not only that,he's got the typical good guy set up.His young daughter's been killed in a tragic swimming pool accident,he's getting stick from his superiors for his unorthodox approach to his job and his wife Terry (Lisa Eilbacher) has left him and has started seeing smarmy senator Frank Traveres (Ron Silver).His life is about to get a whole lot worse,though,when a nasty piece of work by the name of Mikhail Rashid (Ben Cross) and his sidekick Al-red (Tony Plana) start putting explosive devices in the drinking water of politicians and eventually get plans to start targeting the rest of society as well.

In an action role he was to take on a few years before his debut as Bond,Brosnan manages the tough,swaggering good guy role reasonably well,as effective and convincing as he needed to be.Cross can always be relied on to deliver the goods in terms of presence as a good guy or bad guy respectively,but here his part is very poorly written and not given much meat to chew on at all.It's with the action that the film comes alive though,with one or two rollicking good sequences that you will have to see to believe.It certainly ain't with said performances or even the story which,by the end,is stewing so deeply in it's own preposterousness you can practically hear it gurgling.

But,hey,if it wasn't so silly,maybe it wouldn't have been such fun.That,and a surprisingly and ultimately pleasantly compact running time make Live Wire a genuine piece of no-brainer entertainment to savour.

Sit back,switch your brain off and enjoy.****

This is one of my all time favorite movies, forget the water as a bomb, the story was held together by that string that is in all of us, JEALOUSY ! Jealous for the girl, jealous for the guy, and my all time favorite actor to portray a " Dick Head " Ron Silver is brilliant ! This is a movie to watch over and over, one to pick out the great 1 liners used, by Pierce. I just can't say enough about it. As for the year of release let's really think about what great movies there were in 1992? ? ? ? ? ? Exactly, not a whole lot, so give this what I call the " Sleeper Try !" There is a new release out just as similar as this film, called Scotland, PA Check it out !

I came upon this film while channel surfing on an uneventful Tuesday evening. Being that I am both a fan of Pierce Brosnan and action movies, I gave it a chance. And let me tell you, I was not disappionted. Pierce portrays Danny O'Neil, a temperamental FBI bomb squad agent. O'Neil must protect a Senator from a group of terrorists who have invented a kind of liquid explosives that destroy the victims from the inside out. I know, the premise does sound kinda cheesy, but the film itself is quite entertaining. With plot twist (the Senator had an affair with O'Neil's wife) and invigorating action sequences, I would recommend this film to anybody.

This is the best pre-bond Brosnan movie (ok so that's not saying much) but this is relly enjoyable if you leave your brain at the door and get used to brosnan's dodgy american accent.

a must see for all Brosnan & tounge in cheek action fans.

rating 8/10 for originality 9/10 for action 6/10 for script and direction (could have been better)