Checkmate

I couldn't think of a good way to word it until I read what Author: LumpyMusic from Phoenix Arizona USA said. "Disconnected sub-stories" is the bottom line. One story two guys playing chess signing a document. Then their is the girl with the sword who fights everyone else with a sword or stick. Then you have the bank robbery with nothing but guns. I can't put two and two together and figure what they have in common. I thought with the popular cast members it would be a good A movie maybe even an A-. I was wrong, it wasn't even a good B movie. Are there such things as a C movie? Because if there is I wouldn't even give it a C. It get a big fat F from me for failed.

This movie is almost worth watching just to see how ridiculously bad it is.

Every 3rd word or so is an F bomb. That wouldn't be a problem if there was some kind of reason for it or if it were in context. But it's not. It's like the director just said "Throw in a lot of F's just to shock the viewer".

Catholilc priest is a sniper hit-man. Seems totally out of context to the movie. But there doesn't seem to be much "context" to the movie at all anyway.

Two guys playing high stakes chess for some kind of document that might be something like "Immortality". The "Devil" guy that loses the game has thugs with guns that can't beat a chick with a samurai sword. So after those thugs get beat up he calls on his "back up thugs" which consists of people in bathing suits wearing devil Halloween masks. Needless to say the devil aspect has no context to the movie either.

Chick flies a Robinson helicopter with something like a sailboat tiller in reverse. Then in another shot she has some kind of steering wheel.

SWAT team...Couple dozen cops can't shoot a guy standing in the open on the roof. In all fairness, that guy, with his automatic sub-gun, can't hit any of the cops either. Cops fail to notice the bad guy sniper on the roof, the priest sniper in the building across the street nor the bad guy getaway van with two thugs parked in plain view.

None of the actors seemed like they had any lines. It's like some director grabbed anyone off the sound stage and said "OK, sit here, pick up the phone and say something like ""Put me through to Captain""..." The incorrect grammar in my above actual line was deliberate. It's the actual line.

If the acting had been great, it would almost be like a really good parody movie, like "Airplane" or "Police Story" one of the Mel Brooks movies. But the acting sucked. The technical believability sucked. The continuity sucked. And the actors all looked like someone they rounded up at the last minute and offered them lunch if they'd be in the movie.

A B-grade movie and a bad one at that. The film obviously had a small budget and it showed.

The film lacked atmosphere. There was no ambiance of background sounds, noise etc. The scenes outdoors where far too quiet. Plus where is the public? There were no people seen in the background. Making the scenes look obvious they were filed in a studio (rather than on location).

And what's worse than the acting was the lack of basic FX. Wait, I change that, the acting was worse.

Don't waste one and half hours of your time watching this. That time is better spent watching the grass grow.

I recommend watching this movie just so you can judge for yourself how bad it really is, five famous people in it but nobody did any good acting, that said, it had interesting ideas which kept my girlfriend and I watching it all the way through, I like how everything converged at the end but ultimately the bad acting ruined the entire movie.

Vinnie Jones does yet another bad film, Mischa Barton didn't do anything, Sean Astin was an interesting character but could have been better, Michael Pare hasn't improved since the eighties (loved Streets of Rage 1984) I got the impression the helicopter was the shadow of a cardboard cut out, I could go on but I think you need to see it for yourself, I gave it a 2 because it did keep me watching

I simply cannot put into words how absolutely, positively horrible this movie is. The acting is utterly laughable (and I don't mean in a cute, spoofy way), the scenes unbelievable and every other word is a swear. Police that can't contain a crime scene or shoot, robbers that don't rob and many hacked together scenes, all thrown in as if it was a pot of chicken soup and would somehow magically all turn out lovely and delicious in the end. It's too bad, this pot is full of inedible garbage that even the toughest iron gut would spew out immediately. I wondered if Danny Glover owed someone a favor and that's why he did this film. It's the only reason that makes any sense. Unfortunately, even he can't save this stinky bomb. Please don't waste your time on this one - it is truly too bad to describe.