woensdag 24 juli 2013

One in the Chamber (2012)

Genre : Action
Country : USA

Cast :
Dolph Lundgren : Aleksey Andreev
Cuba Gooding Jr. : Ray Carver
Billy Murray : Leo Crosby

Director :
William Kaufman

Alternative title : Last Bullet

Summary
In search of money and freedom from the American justice system, criminals from the United States moved to Eastern Europe, where the laws were replaced by the crime after the collapse of the Communist system. Many of them chose Prague as their hideout, where crime lords were willing to pay a suitable sum of money to assassins in order to eliminate their rivals. One such assassin, Ray Carver, works for two rival gangs as their main killer. When Ray attempts to murder a Chechen drug lord, he is being pursued by the mobsters. Meanwhile, Suverov mafia hires Alexey 'The Wolf' Andreev, an assassin from Russia who is rumored to be not existent. This is when the real gang war starts.

My opinion
Hopefully they didn't pay the screenwriter too much, because he wrote this story with his hands tied behind his back in a long night session. What a simplistic insignificant story.

Short summary:
Mafia Boss 1 employs hitman 1 (Cuba) to eliminate Mafia boss 2
Hitman 1 misses the underboss of Mafia boss 2
Underboss employs hitman 1 to eliminate Mafia boss 1 (plus entourage)
Mafia boss 1 employs hitman 2 (Dolf) to eliminate the underboss (plus entourage)
The boss of hitman 1 betrays hitman 1
Confrontation between hitman 1 and hitman 2
Hitman 1 saves hitman 2 his life
Confrontation hitman 1 (+ his boss) with Mafia boss 1
Hitman 2 assassins Mafia boss 1 (Yep I didn't really see that one coming) and saves hitman 1
Hitman 1 & 2 become best buddies

And there you have it. I could have made that up easily in one night. Mix that with an idyllic story of a handsome chick who lives in Prague, who was the daughter of someone who was eliminated by Cuba and the picture is complete.

Nevertheless it started really well. The opening credits looked almost like "Se7en". The scene in which Cuba uses a huge sniper rifle and the way it's filmed, is fantastic. And then it slumps down and transforms into a common "Terence Hill & Bud Spencer" story, but with guns and machine guns instead of fists.