I Am Wrath (2016)

Stanley Hill opens a can of brutal vengeance on the thugs who murdered his wife and the corrupt cops who are protecting them.

Director:

Chuck Russell

Writers:

Paul Sloan (screenplay by), Yvan Gauthier (story by)

Stars:

John Travolta, Christopher Meloni, Amanda Schull

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
John Travolta	...	Stanley
Christopher Meloni	...	Dennis
Amanda Schull	...	Abbie
Sam Trammell	...	Det. Gibson
Patrick St. Esprit	...	Governor Merserve
Rebecca De Mornay	...	Vivian
Asante Jones	...	Det. Walker
Paul Sloan	...	Lemi K
Luis Da Silva Jr.	...	Charley
Jordan Whalen	...	Mike
Jayden Blake Cochran	...	Jimmy
Caroline Kane	...	Jenna
Robert Forte Shannon III	...	Nathan
Stacy Levi	...	Cathy
James Logan	...	Lars

Storyline

When the manager of Honda vehicles Stanley Hill returns to Columbus, Ohio, he is welcomed by his beloved wife Vivian at the airport. Vivian is an advisor of Governor Merserve, who has reduced the crime rate in Ohio, and now she is analyzing the environmental effect of a duct of oil in Columbus. When they are at the parking lot, they are approached by three scumbags that kill Vivian. Stan identifies one of the thugs to Det. Gibson and Det. Walker, but they release the criminal telling that they do not have enough evidences to keep him locked up. But Stan is a former CIA operative and he seeks out his former partner Dennis to find justice to Vivian. Soon they find a network of corruption in very high level and Stan decides to eliminate the problem.

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Plot Keywords:

shooting a surveillance camera | flag draped coffin | newscast | lighting a cigarette | police line up | 

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Taglines:

I lay my vengeance upon them.

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Genres:

Action | Thriller

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for violence and some language

Did You Know?

Trivia

The film was originally to be directed by William Friedkin and star Nicolas Cage. Production problems forced Cage and Friedkin to leave. In late February 2015, John Travolta was in talks for the lead.

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Goofs

The amount of shave foam on Stanley's face change between shots.

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Quotes

[repeated line]
Dennis: You got three minutes.

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Connections

Referenced in Half in the Bag: The Fanatic (2019)

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Soundtracks

Can You Handle Me
Written and Performed by Oleksa Lozowchuk
Courtesy of Tendershoot Productions

User Reviews

Death Wish MCMXCVII

Yes here it is folks another in a long line of 'Death Wish' clones and one which quite frankly isn't much cop...

The story here sees Stanley Hill (John Travolta) hunting down the crew that killed his wife. Rather than being a one-man show Stanley gains assistance from his fellow ex-black ops pal Dennis (Christopher Meloni). In atypical fashion, Stanley and Dennis take out these punks one by one until they ultimately learn who is behind the death of Stanley's wife and why she was assassinated....

I really haven't got a problem with vigilante type films and have enjoyed other clones that have followed Death Wish (such as Death Sentence which I thought was excellent). For me, part of the problem with this film lay with its lead actor... Travolta has been excellent in the past and was great in films such as Pulp Fiction, Get Shorty and Face/Off, but something just wasn't right here. His performance here was wooden, stiff and generally uncomfortable to watch - it's hard to explain but I just never found him convincing at any point during the story. Many of the supporting performers don't fare much better and to be honest the only person who I thought made any kind of impact was Luis Da Silva Jr who was actually very good and he looked kind of menacing as well.

Of course, a weak and generic story doesn't always matters in films such as I am Wrath as long as it has some style and intensity, but the film falls flat in these respects too - there's no real imagination here, there is some style here (although I personally feel the John Woo style slow-mo stuff looks a bit lame now). You know that our 2 ex-black ops guys are going to kick everyone's ass and fight their way out of impossible situations so you're never going to fear for them. This all results in a film that passes the time, but that's all it does. I watched it, but the only feeling I had about it when the credits started rolling was indifference.

I Am Wrath isn't completely terrible, but it's the sort of film that's so generic and so safe you'll likely be predicting what's going to happen 5 minutes before it does. Like I said a generic story isn't a bad thing if you're made to care about what happens, but I just never got that feeling at any point during this film.

Details

Official Sites:

Official site [Japan]

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

15 April 2016 (USA)

Also Known As:

I Am Wrath

Filming Locations:

Columbus, Ohio, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$12,000,000 (estimated)

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$228,631

Company Credits

Production Co:

Patriot Pictures, Saban Films, Hannibal Classics

Technical Specs

Runtime:

92 min

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1