0.45

Well, that was a waste of 101 minutes. I never would have known that .45 existed, if not for the presence of Milla Jovovich. That ignorance of this movie, probably would have been to my overall advantage. It's safe to say that I am not a fan. 

.45 is basically an R-rated Lifetime Movie of the Week. The story is a messy mix of domestic violence, crime, revenge, double-crosses, and general pointlessness. I was massively disinterested within the first ten minutes, but I forced myself to watch all of it, because of my misguided aversion to not finishing a movie (unless I absolutely must, ex. Darkness). No one came out of this one looking good, even the pretty Ms. Jovovich. I'm struggling to think of a single redeeming quality...nope. I'm drawing a blank. Even if you're a die-hard fan of Milla, I still could not recommend this. She does have talent, but none of it is on display, here. It's been a few months since I've seen a movie that I enjoyed this little.

Picking out a great line in this film is very difficult. There were a lot of great lines in writer Gary Lennon's directorial debut. These are lines, of course, that you will not likely hear on his TV shows that he writes for.

Besides the lines, you had Milla Jovovich. I don't gravitate towards the tall skinny ones with the itty bitties, but she is hot, and she did a good job as a battered girlfriend. She was incredibly believable after the last incident, and as someone who was definitely in fear for her life.

Lennon's story has her finding a way out of her predicament that was sweet and sneaky. Using her hips, lips, and tits, she conned several people into soling her problem; including Sarah Strange ("Da Vinci's Inquest"), who played a bisexual (mostly lesbian) BFF to Milla that wanted much more, and Aisha Tyler (Charlie from "Friends," and the only reason I ever watched "The Ghost Whisperer"), She was a former battered wife that was now a counselor, and she was also very believable in the role.

Stephen Dorff (Blade) was also good, and I wish him luck in his quest for the impossible dream.

This movie although not without it's merits struggles with identity-issues, at times it appears to be a dark comedy, others a serious drama and occasionally a thriller and it goes back and forth like that in tone without much rhyme or reason.

There is also a bundle of (fake) interviews intertwined between the scenes with some of the characters (and some family members to them) talking about each other in various aspects (the movie starts off by Milla Jovovich's character talking about how big Angus McFayden's character is in his pants in great detail).

It does have some very good scenes separately (as well as some very bad ones) but together they don't always flow that well together, and one struggles to 'like' any of the characters and when you start to 'like' someone it's just because there's another character who's seemingly worse than them not that they are particularly likable or anything.

But yeah overall, if you're a massive Milla Jovovich or Angus McFayden fan I suppose you might like it, Stephen Dorff who was the in-ital drawing point of mine to the movie has about 25 minutes of screen-time (possibly less) and it's not one of his better performances albeit just like the movie not completely terrible.

.45 stars Milla Jovovich as Kat, a girl who grows tired of being beaten by her boyfriend, big Al, a gun dealer and low life in general. She finally works up the courage to leave him and befriends Liz(Aisha Tyler), a counselor at a women's shelter.

Another woman, Vic(Sarah Strange) also tries to help Kat and is in love with her in a romantic way.

The final piece of the puzzle is Reilly(Stephen Dorff), another criminal who is a partner of big Al's and like everyone else, lusts for the sexy Kat. He tells her to get revenge on her former lover by killing him.

Kat must make a big decision as to whether or not do away with Al forever or just go along her merry way.

New York City is the backdrop for .45 and it works well, as usual, for a street crime drama. Milla Jovovich is convincing as the gun moll, Kat, and the story is interesting enough for a rating of 7.

While I don't think this is anywhere near the best movie I have ever seen, I think that the character development in the roles played by Milla Jovovich, Angus MacFayden and Sarah Strange were outstanding. Without these performances, the movie would have been predictable and hum-drum. The ancillary commentaries from the two elderly women were also very humorous and added to the movie nicely. I have seen almost everything Milla Jovovich has done (shame on me), and besides "The Messenger", I would rate this as one of her better roles. In fairness, I must say that her role is only strong because of the development of the other main characters. Definitely worth the rental fee!