Blu-ray Review: ‘Wire Room’ Starring Kevin Dillon and Bruce Willis

For anyone who hasn’t heard by now, Bruce Willis announced his retirement from acting due to the onset a cognitive disorder called aphasia. He had been nominally “starring” in multiple direct-to-video features for years, usually playing what amounted to a supporting role. The last couple of years of his career were staggeringly busy ones. The backlog of Bruce Willis movies being released in 2022 (and possibly 2023, given a few unsettled release dates) is somewhere around 14.

Wire Room, directed by Matt Eskandari, arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate. Eskandari previously directed Willis in three thrillers of varying degrees of quality (mostly subpar, but 2019’s Trauma Center isn’t too tough to watch). A “wire room” is an audio/video surveillance center where FBI agents keep tabs on the worst-of-the-worst bad guys. Willis plays the harried wire room boss Shane Mueller, perpetually annoyed by new kid on the block, Justin Rosa (Kevin Dillon).

Obviously Dillon, the film’s primary star, is no kid himself. But he might as well be to the grumpy Mueller. Weirdly, Rosa seems to have landed his job surveilling gun runners without any formal training. He spent years in the secret service. A late-career switch to the wire room finds him out of his element as the film begins. With Mueller knocking off early, Rosa takes over for fellow surveillance expert Nour Holborow (Shelby Cobb) for what he seems to think will be a cake-walk job.

Soon enough the focus of his surveillance, gunrunner Eddie Flynn (Oliver Trevena), Rosa witnesses (over the surveillance feed) some armed bad guys encroaching on Flynn’s home. Again, having apparently received no training for the job, Rosa panics and actually calls Flynn to warn him that his house is under siege. So begins a game of Rosa, who was not supposed to blow the surveillance plan, remotely instructing Flynn how to evade the people who are after him.

There are a lot of plot details in Wire Room that don’t really make sense. And there’s not much point in trying to sort it all out. It’s a workmanlike effort for all involved, though the effectively frazzled performance by Kevin Dillon is its primary asset. If you like Dillon from Entourage, that may be reason enough to give Wire Room a spin. If you’re keeping tabs on what Bruce Willis has been up to in the last films of his career, that’s another reason. But be forewarned, his screentime is confined to a handful of scenes.