MOVIE REVIEW: Reprisal

Did you come across this film thinking that Bruce Willis will display a John McClane-like performance? Well, you were tricked which was what happened to me, too.

Movie poster from teaser-trailer.com

Willis portrayed James, an ex-cop, who is a neighbor to the lead character played by Frank Grillo, Jacob. The glorious Olivia Culpo had a  supporting role as Jacob's wife.

Jacob encountered a bank robbery in the bank where he was working in. The robbers killed one from the staff who tried to retaliate.

Jacob was haunted by the events and soon after, sought help from the friendly neighbor, James. Along with his wife, was his sick daughter. (Spoiler alert: You know it. There is a hostage scene later in the film.)

Willis' part was limited, as he was just the "inside man" that Jacob needed to overcome his dilemma since James was an ex-cop. They teamed up to identify the culprit from the robbery. Eventually, an intense car chase commenced, however, with  Jacob and the culprit. James was only on comms and did not do any sort of action.

In the film's end part, the identified culprit took Jacob's family hostage. James helped, and showed up with a shotgun as his weapon of choice. But again, he did not do much for the sake of action, except perhaps for some clever decision-making which helped our main man, Jacob.

A shootout with a couple of undercover police, contacted by James, and the culprit, and Jacob occurred as James and the wife looked for the hostaged daughter. Jacob needed some time to disarm the culprit because he wanted to catch him alive, for the sake of the whereabouts of his daughter. James entered and shot the culprit dead.

Jacob rushed to the dead body confused and worried that he might not know where his daughter was.  Little did he know that James came into the scene and had already rescued his daughter.

Overalll, the film was a good heist film. However, the takeaway for me was the billing of the actors, specifically for Willis. Of course, they made that as part of their marketing strategy. And for that matter, I could say that it was effective. I could only speack for myself though. They wanted to let people know that the hero of the Die Hard movies woold star in a movie so they gave him the second billing. However, his part in this film was just a supporting one. That might make movie watchers be disappointed with the film. 

If you're  into plain action, this one would be a good pick. It had some thrilling moments and an interesting plot, especially with Jacob's dilemma of being traumatized, and his switch from being a family man into a vigilante.