Ebert Did It Better: Gasbag Reviews

Homefront – 2013

Director Gary Fleder
Starring Jason Statham, James Franco, Winona Ryder, Kate Bosworth, Rachelle Lefevre, Frank Grillo, Clancy Brown, Izabela Vidovic
Screenplay Sylvester Stallone based on Homefront by Chuck Logan

Stallone’s film formula has been the equal to “he punched me first” for as long as I can remember.  Statham has been doing the same stuff since he stopped working with Guy Ritchie.  It was only natural that these two would get together.  The first couple of times it was the dumb and dumber The Expendables and its Godforsaken sequel.  So I suppose this is Stallone giving back tot the guy who helped revive his career for a few weeks.  If this is help, Statham should be an unknown in about 6 years.

Where else but Stallone can one see a tough guy kick three idiots’ assess in one scene using a variety of tools, and then show the same guy “concerned” about being called a liar by his daughter in the next.  It’s masochism with a heart.  If they really wanted to screw with us, they’d give us a theme song by Kenny Loggins.

Statham’s Broker is the one guy trying to do right in every scene, only to be countered by some guy named “Gator” (Franco) who has a hold of the seedy underbelly of the town. That’s right.  Gator.  To the script’s credit, though, at least they don’t pretend Franco can beat up anyone.

The problem with Stallone scripts is they can’t tell whether they want to be sickly sadistic or sweetly sentimental, so they straddle the line and end up at a stupid approximation of the U.S. Male.  This thing should have been done in the 80’s, but if people keep going to Stallone for “ideas,” this crap could go on until he dies.

(** out of *****)