Set Up

Well this type of genre, i.e action, crime, heist is right up my street. Add Bruce Willis to the frame and you would think that I was onto a winner. Unfortunately this was not the case. I found the film to be poorly directed, the acting wooden and the storyline predictable if slightly erratic. After reading the synopsis I kind of thought I would be in for a decent hour and a half. I found myself dropping off 55 minutes into the film which for an action film is pretty poor. Of course, I say action but the truth is there was very little action in it. Add to it a strange religious undertone which I suppose is to signify the lead role is looking for redemption and you get a complete mismatch/ conflict of interests. I give it a generous four out of ten but take into consideration this is about the lowest I have ever scored a film.

In Detroit, Sonny (50 Cent), Vincent Long (Ryan Phillippe) and Dave Hall (Brett Granstaff) are friends since high-school. They reunite to successfully heist 5 million dollars in diamonds in a daring operation. However, Sonny and Dave are betrayed by Vincent that shots them and steel the diamonds.

Sonny miraculously saves and seeks revenge against Vincent. Meanwhile the owner of the diamonds sends a hit-man to find Sonny and Vincent while the powerful mobster Biggs (Bruce Willis) forces Sonny to steal 2 million dollars from a Russian mafia. Sonny seeks out Vincent not only to revenge, but also to get rid off Biggs and his gangsters.

"Setup" is a disappointing film with a poor screenplay. Bruce Willis, Ryan Phillippe and James Remar have minor participations and the character of 50 Cent is not well developed with an ambiguous personality. The director Mike Gunther makes another weak rip-off of Guy Ritchie's style and this comedy-action movie does not work. My vote is four.

Title (Brazil): "Sem Lei" ("Without Law")

Having noticed that this movie contains two big names such as Bruce Willis and Ryan Phillippe, you may think that this is a worthy film. No, you are entirely wrong.

I've never seen such an amateurish film with such high-profile actors. It seems like out of $22 million spent on this flick, $20 million have been spent on actors' fees, and the remaining trifling sum of money was spent on production.

This film lacks everything - what you get is very bad acting, an incoherent unrealistic plot. Basically, you cannot help but wonder why everything happens the way it's portrayed because most of the scenes in the movie make no sense at all.

OK, so I didn't have particularly high expectations for this, and I'm not going to bother emphasising Curtis Jackson's flat performance, since it's likely you've seen how "expressive" this guy is in everything else he's ever done, as it is, if I know he's in a movie, I already have a pretty good clue that he won't be the highlight.

So what else have we got? Ryan Phillippe, and Bruce Willis... OK, Bruce pulls out a reasonable performance, but he really doesn't have much to work with, due to a muddled, thin script.

So of course the same difficulties apply to Ryan Phillippe, however, since he has a much larger part in this it's difficult to see that his performance is OK, and really he's let down by the poor script.

Well, look, Curtis Jackson, I'm not sure why this guy wants to be an actor, for the moment he'll have to keep wanting, because he hasn't pulled anything out the sack with this one. It's not that his performance is dreadful, it's just ... empty, and he really isn't bringing any soul to his character, and I've got to say, I really hope he gets better than this, because I know he's going to keep trying.

Anyway, if you watch this, brush the sick off yourself and go watch Way of the Gun so you can forgive Ryan Phillippe.

In summary even casting a lead that could act probably wouldn't have save this shoddy script, but there's a few good moments that will entertain.

Maybe the second half of this movie gets better. I don't know because I couldn't stand watching any more than I did. I forgave the cheesy film look, figuring it was intended to be part of the look and feel of calibre of these characters - low grade hoodlums and unprofessional professionals. The sequencing of events is clumsy. The believability of what each of the characters is doing is way low. How one of the mob guys shoots himself in the head while waiting for "a bag" (was it pot? big deal!) is highly questionable. That the diamond guy ("hit man") finds our protagonist so easily, then tells him he's got a week (a week!?) to make good...well it was about there I began to consider to quitting this movie. How did they get Bruce Willis to sign on? Willis as the "mob boss" was...well, what can I say. His smirk just didn't convey Godfather. This movie is not worth watching.