At this point I should warn you there are going to be some spoilers in the paragraphs to come because I feel like I'm doing potential viewers a disservice not to rip an appalling plot twist.
Bobby gets put even more squarely in the middle of the conflict when Vadim Nezhinski, the drug-ring leader, orders a hit on Joe. The hit is botched and Joe is maimed, not killed. Nezinski, despite being able to uncover all manner of secret police information, is somehow fooled by Bobby's last name change (it's his mother's maiden name) and never connects Bobby to his PD relations. So fooled is tough guy Nezhinski that he actually asks for Bobby's help in distributing his product. At this meeting between them, Nezhinski makes it clear that Albert will be the next to get clipped.
With his brother near death in the hospital and his father a marked man, Bobby finally decides to go confidential informant for the police. Of course he gets discovered, and a bloody, brutal gunfight ensues. Of course Nezhinski escapes and vows to get his revenge against the entire family.
If that's not lame enough for you, it gets worse. Albert is killed in a high-speed chase trying to protect Bobby and his girlfriend, played by Eva Mendes. She is utterly forgettable in this movie save for the blatant nipple shot in the film's opening scene. With one brother having been wounded and his father murdered, Bobby the former nightclub man is provisionally deputized by the NYPD and allowed to join the case with his grieving and recovered brother. That stretches the bonds of plausibility way too far for me. We don't know that Bobby has priors and maybe he doesn't, but I can't believe NYPD would bring a civilian in and let him track his family's nemesis on a provisional basis with no actual police training. My disbelief just doesn't extend that far.
At this point, just as I've almost entirely disengaged from the film I became really glad I bothered to get my Dolby Digital set correctly. In the film's climactic scene, Bobby stalks Nezhinsky through a marsh. The sound mix is excellent here and the sounds of predator and prey are bounced around the different speaker channels as reeds and underbrush are moved aside during the chase. It's an effective use of the technology and adds to an otherwise pedestrian finale. To the film's credit, the action ends crisply and there is no agonizing chase between two mortally wounded adversaries.
Article comments
1 - El Bicho
Very nice job. looks like we'll see more of you in Video and Gaming now.
2 - Josh Hathaway
Thanks, El Bicho. I'd love to tell you I'll be doing this more often but my track record speaks for itself.
Next up: I'm going to have to wait for Blockbuster to get a Blu-ray copy of No Country for Old Men in stock.