Jogo Sujo

Back in the day, a movie starring Jean-Claude Van Damme was an action flick with lots of martial arts. He was the good guy in it. And it actually starred Van Damme.

More recently, Van Damme has made some movies with him as a flawed protagonist, and then several more as the main bad guy.

This movie is a decent Drama/Suspense film, with Van Damme as a secondary character, and a tries-to-be-good bad guy. He is just above the "character actor" role, probably in my mind only because he is JCVD.

The bad guys here go looking for the guy who barely escaped and still has the money, after some hold-up years ago where everyone else goes to prison to stew and fester about their revenge. There are enough variations on this basic idea to keep the viewer interested. Lennie James does a good job as the town Sheriff, easy going, hard to ruffle, and who you somehow know you just don't want to mess with. There is actually a little action here and there, but it is realistic (no martial arts) and serves mostly to add to the suspense.

With no JCVD, this would be a movie worth a watch. An interesting plot, with good acting, and nice cinematography. Seeing JCVD do his "actual acting" thing is also fairly enjoyable. He manages to entertain with his french (Belgian) accent and a simmering manner that seems to add depth even to a character that has little.

This is not a Jean Claude van Damme vehicle (putting this out, because I can imagine that some countries might try to sell it that way). He's taking back seat with a more chilled out character and lets others go crazy. Lennie James whom I really noticed in "Hung" (nice small role in that TV show) is taking center stage.

The story is pretty bog standard, but it works for a small budget movie. It tries keeping the story flowing and doesn't take any prisoners (a bit of a western analogy can be made). The flashbacks are there to help us and move the story forward. Some character relationships are a bit too complicated and might not work entirely. Still nice effort and the tension it builds is decent enough

JCVD is top billed but really not utilitied in this rather disappointing film. The premise was okay, but the story had to force its way through a slightly unexplained opening. At no point did you feel gripped or engaged, as the setting and characters were uninspired. JCVD, who I imagine is the sole draw to this film for most people, played his part well, but really had no opportunity to make an impact on the overall quality.

The good: The cinematography is really nice (except for a view hiccups).

The bad: Jean-Claude Van Damme does not so bad as usual (isn't much in the movie)

The ugly: Characters and story The whole movie doesn't make any sense - not even a little bit. I don't wanna spoil for the brave that sit trough the movie - but its bad, really bad.

In this movie you will see characters (yes I mean plural) that have no soul, are cliché, unbelievable and really stupid.

And if I say stupid I really mean it - almost nobody of the main characters would live that long if they where like this forever (but the movie didn't mention a chemical plant accident where everybody got insane - so ...)

For me it's always surprising to see that really bad scipts are getting money (and we talk about millions) - where clearly no money can't be made. OK yes Tarantino or Robert Rodriguez could make this film work (but hey they would cast the right actors and give them some crazy lines to work with)

Saw this movie on sale for 50 cents and said hey can't go wrong right? It made sense after watching why it was so cheap but overall the movie wasn't worst thing I ever seen.

First of all this is not big budget movie at all. Its very easy to tell immediately from the shaky camera work to the poor action shots. But it does what it can with all that in mind.

The movie starts painfully slow and feels extremely dragged out. However the last 20 minutes or so I have to say were pretty good and lot things happen.

Another issue I had with this movie without giving too much away is some events that transpire in the movie are utterly confusing and you'll notice yourself scratching your head several times. Its shame because I think they tried to do this to give it twist and turn aspect but this style of movie it just doesn't work good for.

I wouldn't recommend this movie for teenage to young adult demographic they'll hate it with passion. But for the dad/older men generation might find it somewhat enjoyable.