After a botched heist, Eddie (Bruce Willis), a murderous crime boss, hunts down the seductive thief Karen (Claire Forlani) who failed him. In order to win back Eddie's trust, Karen recruits her ex-lover and premier thief Jack (Mark-Paul Gosselaar) to steal a cargo of rare precious gems. But when the job goes down, allegiances are betrayed and lines are crossed as Jack, Karen, and Eddie face off in a fateful showdown. Lionsgate Premiere will release the action thriller in theaters and on demand on April 22, 2016. A crime boss tries to make off with loot that belongs to another thief. In the past few years, Bruce Willis has found himself in a series of direct-to-DVD action flicks that have come out of nowhere. Some of these have been terrible, while others have been mildly watchable, but none of them have been necessarily deserving of Bruce Willis' talent. Precious Cargo, while certainly not a great film by any means, is definitely the best of Willis' recent crop of features, and certainly a whole lot better than its Rotten Tomatoes score would imply. It's neither a disaster or an undiscovered gem. It's simply a fun 90 minutes. <br/><br/>I suppose it was inevitable that I would enjoy Precious Cargo. As a fan of both Bruce Willis when he's in action movies and Mark-Paul Gosselarr in pretty much anything, I was probably bound to get some enjoyment out of the flick no matter what. It's entirely due to the two stars that Precious Cargo is the fun watch that it ends up being. To director/co-writer Max Adams credit, he doesn't have the two stars play their usual predictable roles. Bruce Willis is not playing a John Mcclane type, and Mark-Paul Gosselarr is not playing a Zack Morris type. Willis plays the bad guy here, and while he doesn't quite chew the scenery, his performance is not exactly subtle. He knows he's not acting in something that was going to win him an Oscar, so he isn't afraid to occasionally go a bit over the top. Really though, Willis is more of a supporting character. The real lead is Gosselaar, the hero of the story, and he successfully brings his two-dimensional character to life with natural charisma and charm.There's a lot of jokes/one liners in the film, ones that could have been downright groan-worthy, but Gosselaar sells them as legitimately funny. Other actors in the film aren't so lucky, and deliver some horribly bad dialogue that they look absolutely embarrassed to be uttering.<br/><br/>Precious Cargo obviously didn't have a huge budget and parts of it are quite cheesy, but that's a big part of its overall charm. The action scenes, despite not being particularly innovative, are well shot and edited in a much better fashion than 95% of the action pictures that are given a throwaway VOD release. The action scenes are the highlight of the film, and are generally cool to watch with limited CGI. However, other production values are not as strong. The cinematography is way too orange for my liking, though it's never quite distracting enough to ruin my enjoyment of the overall film. The music also could have been a lot stronger. The entire score feels like it supposed to be temporary for a test screening or rough cut but was never changed. At least the music itself is never terrible or completely overbearing.<br/><br/>Precious Cargo is no classic. It is nowhere near the top of the list of best Bruce Willis movies, or even the best of action movies released in the past six months, though it is still quite entertaining, despite some of its lesser production values and cringe-worthy moments of bad dialogue. It's a quick 90 minutes of fun action, a stupid plot, and a few intentional and unintentional laughs. If this were a wide theatrical release, I'd give this a 5, but as its one of the better VOD/direct-to-DVD releases I've seen recently, I'm giving it a 6 out 10. Recommended to action fans. Just thinking about Bruce being in this and why he'd do something like that, might make some feel dizzy. Or annoyed, and not in a good sense. Then you also get a very bland main character and a female lead (femme fatale), who you kind of thought you'd like, but then it turns out she just annoys the hell out of you.<br/><br/>So stay away from this as some have stated, has more than one meaning in this. But if you can't: there have been worse movies out there and you still get some sort of tension and excitement out of it. Nothing an episode of Burn Notice wouldn't pack in tighter form and more coherent (didn't think I'd ever write that) … but maybe you find something that is entertaining in this … A rip-off and a rerun.
Rozasha replied
372 weeks ago