Shrapnel

In many ways, this is Rambo 5 on a budget. It starts out decent enogh. Jason Patric's daughter is abducted in Mexico. But he's a badass ex-marine, and won't give up on her without a fight. So far so good. Up until the first action scene, the writing and acting is pretty strong. The film spends time setting up the Cartel as all powerful antagonists, and they have corrupt cops on their side, too. The acting by the Cartel members and the cops is good. Jason Patric and his army buddy are good as well, but the actress playing his wife is awful.

The first action scene is set up almost like the finale of Rambo 5... and then it all goes downhill.

This film fails at what it wants to be. It could have worked as a gritty crime thriller, but it wants to be an action film. When you make an action film, you have to get the action right. The action scenes are amateurishly filmed, cheaply made, with all muzzle flares, bullet impacts and even the blood cgi. The destruction of the house looks fake, as do the impacts in cars and walls. It's an instant let down. Beyond that, the bad guys have the worst aim of any movie badguys ever. Even Star Wars Stormtroopers don't aim this badly. There are multiple scenes where Jason Patric is right in the line of fire at barely 5 meters apart, yet somehow every bullet misses. Once that first action scene happens, the movie loses all its momentum.

It's a pity, because the setup was done well. Gritty B-movies like this can work, see the recent Mob Land. But for that to happen, directors and producers need to come to terms with their budgetary limitations and work around them. It is better to have less action but done right than to have a lot of action done badly.

Pulse pounding gunfights and a tense script keep the eyes glued to the screen. I did not except too much going into this movie and thought it would be just another mediocre action movie. What a surprise to find it thrilling and entertaining. Starts off slow as it builds the backstory and the inevitable showdown that is about to come.

Once that starts it is non-stop.

Most of all it was the gunfighting that hooked me. Some of the best since movies like heat or John Wick, but more more visceral.

Who does not like to see a violent cartel get what's coming, and this movie delivers in spades. What needs to happen, happens.

"You promised to keep us safe. You didn't."

Shrapnel is directed by William Kaufman and stars Jason Patric and Cam Gigandet.

After releasing The Channel earlier this month William Kaufman is back with a revenge thriller in the vein of Taken and Rambo: Last Blood. Unfortunately I didn't think this was as good as The Channel but that was sort of a high bar to live up to well at least in terms of DTV movies. I didn't think this was a total misfire either there are definitely some redeeming qualities here.

I actually thought this movie was too short surprisingly and I feel like this could've benefited from actually showing Sean's (Jason Patric's) daughter getting kidnapped in the beginning or maybe a few more scenes between Gigandet and Patric to further flesh out their relationship. Unfortunately this also suffers from pretty weak writing and I blame Chad Law and Johnny Martin Walters for that. Johnny Martin Walters only other writing credit is a Steven Seagal movie from 2019. Chad Law is actually a pretty prolific writer in the DTV space having written last year's Ryan Kwanten led Section 8, as well as this year's Tubi Original The Getback and the abysmal movie The Flood starring Nicky Whelan. Luckily Law's writing is better here but it's still not great.

For the positives I thought Jason Patric was good here and he actually sold the emotional scenes pretty well. Cam Gigandet is also pretty good here and adds some charisma to this that's needed but he unfortunately barley has any screen time. Kaufman does what he does best and turns this into a pure home invasion shoot em up during the last 15 minutes which was the best part of the movie for me. All the action scenes here are good and Kaufman is the main reason for that but I feel like they were lacking compared to The Channel. With a better script and more emotional depth for the characters this could've been way better.

For a low budget film, this was pretty good. It reminds me of Rambo Last Blood, but with a better outcome and ending. It's not perfect by any means, but it's entertaining and the fight scenes are really well done. Yes, the story has been done before, but so has almost every story out there these days. The camera work was blurry at times as well, but not enough to interfere with the movie. I liked it for a B movie and would love to see more like this.

However, my biggest gripe with the movie was that some of the actors and actresses could have been better picked. The wife just didn't act very good and the brother of the cartel leader didn't exactly look like a tough man or scary. The scene with the wife in bed was painful to watch and the brother acting tough when attacking the house was too, but everything else was pretty good.

This review will be spoiler free. The premise of the movie being a former soldiers daughter was abducted in Juarez, Mexico and the father went looking for his daughter in Juarez. Trouble followed him back home to Texas.

The premise is good, has potential but the actual movie is incredibly slow to get moving and the script, production and acting are D grade, even beneath midday, telemovie, standards.

I paid a paltry $4 for the rental of this movie from Prime and believe I was dudded, it's that poor I don't think it even has a viewing value of $4.