A Man Apart

New Line Cinema presents an F. Gary Gray film.

Starring: Vin Diesel and Larenze Tate

Directed by: F. Gary Gray

Rating:***

Plot: Diesel and his home boys are the best in kicking drug dealers asses. When they bust one of the real big boys from Mexico though a new group of nasty drug dealers reveal themselves only known as Diablo (Which was the original title of the movie) and they are tearing up the streets. Once they go after Diesel instead of killing him they kill his wife. Now he is pissed and goes on the hunt to find his wife's killers and he kicks a lot of ass on his way there.

Acting: This is Vin Diesel's line up basically... Saving Private Ryan (For like one second), Boiler Room (Good stuff), Pitch Black (One of my fav movies), Fast and The Furious (Blah), XXX (Even more blah). So he does not have the best list of movies. So to see him actually act in this was really good. The only problem is this renegade cop thing has been do so much in so many movies it just isn't surprising anymore. He does use what he has in this movie and does a good job. I heard this was made before Fast and the Furious and was held for a while. I think it choose the wrong time to open because this movie is violence and major audiences don't want that now. Anyway Vin is the only guy who stands out in this the guy who plays the major Mexican drug lord does a really good job. Larenze Tate does nothing he just stands around and asks Diesel questions like "What are you going to do now" and "What are you doing?". I think the studio has him in some other movies and is trying to get his name out there. Anyway Diesel was good but I can't wait for the Pitch Black sequels ohhh yeah!

Directing/Writing: This movie had the same type of formula as most cop/action movies do. The only thing is this one stands out more for how gritty it is with such intense action. The reality of the fact that most drugs do come from Mexico and the bad guys sictuation are Mexican I was proud to see. In most action movies its always white or black guys doing it and it just seems so fake. This movie made the sictuation more real. The violent action also stood out to me. One scene Diesel's character literally beats someone to death because they talked about killing his wife and etc. The scene continued with an amazing gun battle with shit exploding and I loved it! It didn't make much sense but I loved it. That was the problem with the movie is it tried to make twists but with an easy plot line like this its hard. They had too much like "who is working for who" crap that didn't add up in the end and it was painful to watch. The end also is a real let down where Diesel goes in but the action is not very high and that made me leave the theatre kind of pissed off. I wanted Vin Diesel whooping ass with a shot gun, oh well.

Overall: Pretty good action flick, I mean one hell of a good gun battle and enough Vin Diesel being a bad ass and just slapping and punching people to keep me happy so I was fine. I wish the plot would have been cleaner or more intense towards the end. Oh well I wish for a lot of things. Oh and sorry this review is soooo late I am just a lazy jerk and didn't write this one up till now.