Synopsis: A vengeful father (Nic Cage) escapes from hell and chases after the men who killed his daughter and kidnapped his granddaughter.If you look up the MPAA rating on this, you'll find "Rated R for strong brutal violence throughout, grisly images, some graphic sexual content, nudity and pervasive language." That pretty much sums it up. It's a ridiculously over-the-top yet sort of enjoyable thrill ride.
Cage is playing a role that he's actually really good at in my opinion; unhinged, unrealistic, deadpan cool, tough guy. He's dead on here I think. As a bonus you get the lovely Amber Heard to look at and she plays a tough chick quite well. William Fichtner does an excellent job of playing The Accountant too and actually threatens to steal the show a few times.
The movie looks great and I only wish I'd have seen it in the theater in 3D. It's got a nice throwback to the 70s feel going on and it does a good job of feeling like an old pulp grindhouse movie. That means it's got a lot of tongue-planted-firmly-in-cheek. One problem though... it almost follows the Grindhouse formula too closely. It's all pretty predictable and pretty much just like every other Grindhouse movie I've seen full of shootouts, car chases, muscle cars, naked boobs and cheesy one-liners as a character tries to get revenge on those who wronged him. At least there's a whole mythology at work with Cage's character escaping from hell (he's even named John Milton), a retriever of lost souls chasing him and flipping an Obolos coin and there are mentions of Anubus and the devil. That's all sort of fun. But still it's all a bit calculated and trying too hard to be hip at times.
But overall it's still a pretty fun, violent, goofy, unrealistic, popcorn film. Seeing it in the theater in 3D might have raised my rating a bit even.
6.5/10
