Quan is his usual charismatic self and deploy's his martial expertise to great effect but the script isn't really on par with his talent and he valiant tries but mostly fails in resting anything coherent from it. DeBose is miscast, the twenty year age difference between her and Quan is apparent and makes the feints at romance between the two particularly cringe. She's a bit lost in the role and has yet to really meet the promise she showed in West Side Story. The rest of the supporting cast is pretty stacked- Sean Astin shows up and it's wonderful to see the two Goonies share the screen again, Mustafa Shakir as Raven a rival hitman, Lio Tipton as Ashley Marvin's co-worker going through an existential crisis(and who has an actually engaging romantic subplot with Shakir's character), boba tea slurping villain Daniel Wu- other than DeBose it's great casting and they all do something with their roles but both the direction and the script prevent any of them from really soaring.
Shot in Winnipeg the "Milwaukee" setting is kind of insulting, it looks like nameless, faceless suburbia rather than any actual place. The action sequences are thrillingly choregraphed and occasionally extremely graphic which is great but it's also pretty incongruous with the other attempted themes. Tonally it's ambitious, you have to give it that, but it's not successful, part John Wick part Gross Pointe Blank, it careens from heartfelt to broad comedy to brutal gore with little to no management, control, or intent. As a result all the genre's they attempt to meld come up short. There are little islands of great scenes but what surrounds them just frustrates. Despite the considerable powers of Quan it never really takes flight.
Destined to underperform in theaters and become a "hit" once streaming.
Currently in theaters, coming soon to VOD.
Stream It.
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