A bunch of escaped criminals take over a shopping centre. One of them is a genuinely nice guy, so his well-meaning brother Rudy Ray (Mickey Rourke) infiltrates the shopping centre to save him. Still reading? If you were expecting a good film, you've got the wrong POINT BLANK. It's terrible - plain and simple.
It was Greil Marcus, talking about Rod Stewart, who famously declared: `rarely has anyone betrayed his talent so completely'. Of course, the phrase could be aptly used to describe Mickey Rourke. The finest actor of the 1980's (Angel Heart, Barfly, Prayer for the Dying, White Sands, Rumble Fish, 9 1/2 Weeks) always lives up to expectations. Unfortunately, expectations of Mickey Rourke are not what they once were. A string of embarrassing pictures led to a self-imposed retirement. On return, his fortunes have not improved.
If this reads like a career obituary, that's not the intention. Fingers crossed that a Soderbergh, Tarantino or Ferrara can resurrect his fallen star. Anything - absolutely anything - to spare us any more films as bad as POINT BLANK. It's a juvenile action romp, so gleeful in its stupid, sadistic violence it's almost unbearable to watch - and certainly impossible to enjoy.
If it hurt Mickey to have his scenes removed from Terrance Malick's THIN RED LINE, or even DOUBLE TEAM, it seems his role has been reduced here too. He fades in and out of the action - perhaps he's trying to hide in the background. Either way, the results are inevitable, and nobody - least of all Rourke - could care less.
It's not just that it's been done a million times better. The shoddy logic of the filmmakers is inane beyond comprehension. (a) The crime kingpin decides to sedate a frenzied psycho-rapist by giving him a whole brick of cocaine to snort. (b) After tormenting a female hostage, she then willingly performs a private sex-show for the pervert. (c) After the striptease he takes her out on the balcony and shoots her in full view of the surrounding cops. (d) He achieves the incredible feat of actually snorting the whole brick of cocaine in ninety minutes.
That's just one incident that doesn't bear close scrutiny. The writer and director clearly revel in sex/drugs indulgence, and it comes out just as dubious as one would expect. There's dramatic license, but then there's a police force that idly watches as hostages are randomly executed.
And let me assure you my vote of one for this film is no knee-jerk reaction. I tried - and failed - to watch it twice. But much like Mickey Rourke in the ring, his audience has a habit of coming back and suffering again and again.
