Had Blackjack not proudly bared John Woo's name I would not have given it the time of day, it feels like the movie you'd turn to only after you've exhausted every other option in the man's filmography, a career low point for Woo and not one I'd go out of my way to recommend. However, it does boast some relatively passable action sequences, a halfway decent performance from Dolph and a surprisingly modest score, but not even Woo can save the fact that the story is hideously uninteresting and clichéd, the characters are paper thin, offensively bland and woefully acted but the real killer is that this TV pilot is nearly 2 hours long! It's in desperate need of trimming down or better pacing as once you get to the 1-hour mark, you'll have seen everything this movie has to offer. The thing is, every John Woo movie has its fans so I'm sure there's probably someone out there who has recommended Blackjack for the Criterion release at some point. He's just a great entertainer and has a very distinctive voice even when he's working with truly horrendous material.
