I Am Wrath

Stanley Hill (John Travolta) is getting picked up at the airport by his wife when they get attacked by men who are apparently violent robbers. His wife is killed. She was a close advisor to the Ohio Governor Merserve. Abbie (Amanda Schull) is their daughter. Stanley picks out the killer in a police lineup but the cops just let him go. He reconnects with Dennis (Christopher Meloni), a man from his secret past.

This is a fine example of the lower budget thriller. It has some interesting actors. It also has the pre-requisite former A-list actor to lead the project. The story is pretty standard although I would change a couple of points. While Travolta does his thing, I'm more surprised with the presence of Meloni. They are a good pairing and this would be a better buddy thriller. They should spend more time together. Otherwise, it's nothing special and nothing bad. It's fine.

Some of reviews about this movie is just as bad as they say this movie is. It's an action movie.! It's not supposed to be art. It's made to entertain and I was entertained. It's an ok movie and Travolta is great as a badass vigilante. So if you're in the moo for action, this is ok.

"I Am Wrath" feels familiar. There is a trope called "mugging the monster," in which villains mistakenly target somebody with a particular skill set and receive their comeuppances in spades. Usually, the individual is reluctant to rely upon those skills or wants to suppress that part of their life. It was used to introduce Frank's martial arts talents in both "The Transporter" and "The Transporter Refueled." It may be a scene played for comic effect or to round out a character in movies like "Crocodile Dundee," an unexpected wrinkle in movies like "Air Force One," and occasionally the premise of the movie, as in "First Blood," "John Wick" or "A History of Violence." It is perhaps a sort of fantasy fulfillment for anybody who has been victimized. Wouldn't we all like to have the powers and abilities of a superhero, crime lord or kung fu master to turn life's misfortunes to our advantage and simultaneously discourage the criminals and jerks of the world from repeating or continuing their repugnant behavior?

IAW is not terribly original; however, it is competently executed. The villains are suitably sleazy, violent and remorseless. They aren't the vilest lot of malcontents by a long shot, but they provide a suitable level of threat. The plot is familiar, but is only an excuse for the action scenes. There are no car chases, pyrotechnics or extended scenes of unarmed combat, although there are a few brief fights. It's mostly threats followed by gunplay without any elaborate choreography. Production values are adequate, although Travolta's wig is noticeable and distracting.

Travolta has done much better work as a tough guy, notably in Luc Besson's "From Paris with Love." Here he is not given a multi-layered, finely nuanced character and makes little effort to bring new dimensions to a sparsely developed script.

The movie is boosted considerably by a couple of the supporting roles. Christopher Meloni steals his scenes as the sidekick/guardian. Sam Trammell's look of boyish innocence cloaks a dark side to his character.

The script was written by Paul Sloan, who also plays the villain Lemi K, and was originally in development with Nicolas Cage set to star and William Friedkin directing, but somehow that fell through. The script seems a couple drafts short of complete. It feels as if it was written with franchise ambitions. The title, Stanley's tattoo and the buddy relationship with Dennis all scream comic hero series. However, it fails to develop Stanley as a continuing character or to leave him in a situation to continue his vigilantism.

The result is a film that is an entertaining diversion but largely forgettable.

Yes here it is folks another in a long line of 'Death Wish' clones and one which quite frankly isn't much cop...

The story here sees Stanley Hill (John Travolta) hunting down the crew that killed his wife. Rather than being a one-man show Stanley gains assistance from his fellow ex-black ops pal Dennis (Christopher Meloni). In atypical fashion, Stanley and Dennis take out these punks one by one until they ultimately learn who is behind the death of Stanley's wife and why she was assassinated....

I really haven't got a problem with vigilante type films and have enjoyed other clones that have followed Death Wish (such as Death Sentence which I thought was excellent). For me, part of the problem with this film lay with its lead actor... Travolta has been excellent in the past and was great in films such as Pulp Fiction, Get Shorty and Face/Off, but something just wasn't right here. His performance here was wooden, stiff and generally uncomfortable to watch - it's hard to explain but I just never found him convincing at any point during the story. Many of the supporting performers don't fare much better and to be honest the only person who I thought made any kind of impact was Luis Da Silva Jr who was actually very good and he looked kind of menacing as well.

Of course, a weak and generic story doesn't always matters in films such as I am Wrath as long as it has some style and intensity, but the film falls flat in these respects too - there's no real imagination here, there is some style here (although I personally feel the John Woo style slow-mo stuff looks a bit lame now). You know that our 2 ex-black ops guys are going to kick everyone's ass and fight their way out of impossible situations so you're never going to fear for them. This all results in a film that passes the time, but that's all it does. I watched it, but the only feeling I had about it when the credits started rolling was indifference.

I Am Wrath isn't completely terrible, but it's the sort of film that's so generic and so safe you'll likely be predicting what's going to happen 5 minutes before it does. Like I said a generic story isn't a bad thing if you're made to care about what happens, but I just never got that feeling at any point during this film.

I saw Travolta on the poster and without knowing much all I could think of is Charles Bronson in Death Wish. I was close. The movie reminds me of a cross between John Wick and The Punisher (of which Travolta played the villain in the 2004 movie version).

Travolta plays what looks like your average Joe, who watches his wife get murdered right in front of him by what looks like an average car jacking in a city that's been boiling over with violence lately, but it turns out Travolta has a past that was beyond average and goes Liam Neeson on the bad guys.

Though he does not look as good as Neeson lashing out those particular set of skills on his wife's killers (but who does?),Travolta was still fun to watch as he hunted down his foes one by one, and just when he thought he was finish, turned out we have more villains to kill. It was like he was leveling up in a video game, that's how far up it goes.

Travolta himself was more convincing as average Joe wanting vengeance for his wife's death then he was at the dude who could seek this vengeance flawlessly, which is why they kept it light. Helping with this tone is Christopher Meloni who plays the dude Travolta has to call when he gets back in the game. I'm a huge fan of Meloni and he gives a great performance as the guy who has one hand still in the pot while pretending to be a barber. The chemistry of Meloni and Travolta as two old soldiers so jaded by it all that they joke back and forth as they stomp out evil. It's good banter.

This action movie was a great safety net for Travolta, I can't remember the last time I seen him in something decent, and that's what this was, very decent, very watchable from the very beginning all the way to the very end.