Detective Knight: Independence

This has it all. Lots of blood, bad characters, poorly played, poorly filmed.

That kid makes it all the way to be a proficient EMT, but somehow gets influenced to bad judgement calls at the scene of a shooting, ignoring his own ethical duty, but also hurting a victim in order to "save" him.

When confronted for his acts, his unethical behavior is not even brought up, but the fact that the patient is suing the city finally gets him fired and makes him snap. No union rep, no chance to defend himself, but somehow he keeps his badge and his gun.

The rest is horrific and completely predictable.

If you're watching this movie because Bruce Willis is in it, you have to be sorry for your time, and his fall. WTF???

You can't blame him for constantly being cast by a lousy filmmaker, a paycheck is a paycheck. This is the third, and thankfully, final entry of writer and director Edward Drake's Detective Knight trilogy of films. Of the three films, this one actually had the best story premise, but sadly, was the worst directed of them all, and the screenplay was riddled with plot holes, cringeworthy dialogue, and unrealistic nonsense sub-narratives. I'm baffled how any filmmaker can get worse with the more films they make, instead of better.

This had the usual amateur-hour Drake trademarks of blurry scenes, poorly executed color contrast effects, fade in and outs, as well as shaky cam footage. To make matters worse, Drake added annoying split-screen shots - like a five year old discovering gravity, as well at attaching GoPros to props, all of which were failed attempts at any improved filmmaking. Even at a normally comfortable 91 min runtime, this film felt never-ending, even with the fairly decent pacing, due to long dragged out and unnecessary scenes, mostly rubbish with cringeworthy dialogue. There was no coherent or cohesive fluidity to the scenes, and they seemed to clumsily appear in and out between random narratives. I sure hope Willis has fulfilled any contractual obligations to be in any more Drake dreck dumpster productions, he deserves much better.

This starts with a harrowing bank robbery. Detective James Knight (Bruce Willis) and Fitzgerald (Lochlyn Munro) arrive to help take them down. EMTs Dezi (Jack Kilmer) and Ally (Willow Shields) come to treat the wounded. Dezi tries to treat one of the dying robbers, but Fitzgerald redirects them to treat the bank manager. Dezi slowly spirals downward and joins the dark side.

I really like the opening, but it starts going downhill as soon as the EMTs show up. They are not good actors and they are acting more like junkies. Something is off. Maybe Dezi needs to go full loner mode. He needs to be alone for the whole movie. Of course, everybody wants to know about Bruce. He's not the lead in this last movie of the trilogy. He's fine although he's not asked to do that much. This is still not a good movie.

What shall I say. The first half hour what a nonsense and what a bad actors. What does this director actually want to make ? Only bad films? Who are these actors then? No I don't feel like watching any of his movies and Willis and all those other bad actors. After twenty minutes it was the end dor me and now they want me to write 266 charcters more? Would I ever pay money to watch this in a theater, the answer is no. Would I purchase or download this movie on a streaming service, again, the answer is no so what am I doing? Clearly, 'Detective Knight' doesn't make it to the top of the list of larger-than-life action adventure thrillers. Rather, Ed takes it slow and manages to give his veteran star Bruce Willis and his famed trilogy a befitting farewell.

For an actor that announced his retirement (for health reasons) Bruce Willis was in eleven movies released in 2022. Face it. Over the years we've all enjoyed watching Bruce chew up the scenery. Unfortunately not all of the releases for the year were stellar performances. This one being the 3rd, and final installment of the Detective Knight trilogy.was not what I would call the highlight of the three. Starting from the chase scene coming out of the bank, this movie became a giant turd. The dialogue was voiced off camera from the 1:09 mark almost to the very end. What was voiced on camera was out of sync. I can't help but think that they rushed the release for some reason. Surely they could have cleaned it up in post if they had taken more time.

It's sad to think they rushed the release just for the money. I had enjoyed the first two in the series, but this one was ruined by the bad sound editing in the latter third of the film.

Jack Kilmer gave a sparkling performance. His father would have been proud. I think he has a long career ahead of him, and I'll be looking forward to seeing more of his work. The rest of the cast carried their parts believably, which is why the ending was such a disappointment.

I love ya Bruce, so I'm hoping when Assassin is released later this year, that it'll be something we all want to remember you by. Regardless, thanks for the decades of enjoyable performances.