Dumb

Rating: 5/10 (3 January 2015)

I'm sorry to say but this movie is borderline pathetic. It tries to be a combination between Taken and 80s action movies and fails at both. Why?
For a single reason. I didn't sympathized with the main character, the hero. In movies like Taken, I could understand his motivations and drive because honestly, we would all do the same.
But in this movie, the motivation itself is a cliché. I liked the villain more than the hero, at least the villain was sophisticated.
Plus, this isn't Call of Duty. This guy can run, jump, fight, get shot three times and still be alright, fix his wounds with honey, defeat a team of special forces, kill a dozen people in the city and nobody saw anything or took his fingerprints and I could go on like this until tomorrow.
The plot defies logic (in the final act, it would have been simpler to simply bomb the entire complex where the hostages were and they would be done with it), the hero is made to look very smart and resourceful compared to everyone else and generally, the movie is a bore.
Look, Hollywood, this is 2014. Our Iqs increased a bit since 1990. Enough with the one man army plot. Enough with the "good guy kills 100 bad guys" type of story. It is not realistic. Even the Matrix was more realistic than this movie. A similar movie was The November Man but at least that was a bit more realistic. By the end of this movie, I despised the hero, felt like I've lost two hours of my time and wished I saw something else instead.
If you want to see something good, see Training Day instead. That is his BEST movie. Or watch Taken 1, 2 and 3. Or any other movie that isn't designed following the 1980 "Commando / Rambo" formula.