User reviews

Was looking forward to a thriller set in Europe with attractive scenery and good leads. What could go wrong? Mainly weak direction and plot holes. But there are some redeeming features amidst the faults:

The faults: Sigourney Weaver is a fine actress but here she is given hardly anything to work with. It is a very one dimensional laughably stone faced villain who just seems to go through the motions in a distracted fashion. Sometimes you just got to take the role you get.

There isn't enough of Bruce Willis - felt like a cameo.

The ludicrous beatings which result in hardly any bodily damage.

Too much photography in the dark night for a movie called the Cold Light of Day. Probably not a good thing when it comes out on DVD.

There are some good points. It's interesting to see Madrid, a city not often featured. While it's not Europe's most photogenic capital it's a nice change.

There is no silly contrived romance. It's more about family bonds instead. Strange casting of Rafi Gavron as the younger brother. Doesn't look like her could be related to any of them.

Henry Cavill tries hard and has screen presence even if it seems more like a rehearsal for Bond or some other better action role. Verónica Echegui the young Spanish actress is quite watchable - Penelope Cruz with more regular features.

In the end it is a slightly below average thriller with a bit more irritation than excitement.

I adore Henry Cavill and there's not enough of him on film for me, so would watch pretty much anything with him in it. I had noticed the alarmingly low IMDB rating, but thought I could just watch him walk around and be entertained. I'm also Israeli, so the "Mossad" element intrigued me, but the lead Israeli seemed to be played by a non-Israeli actor, which is laughable, with so many Israeli actors to choose from with more talent than this guy. Indeed, while Cavill was mostly up to the task, the other actors were so dreary it was like watching paint dry. Even Willis wasn't his best in this and Weaver gave her career-worst performance. Bad script and bad casting likely to blame, but production values were also so sub-par it was distracting and hard to watch.

The story definitely had a lot of potential. It could have been great. Unfortunately the writing/scripting was mediocre, and that is optimistically speaking. Add to that equally high school theatre level acting, even from experienced actors, and you get a disappointing end product as a result. Pity. It really could have been great.

Will Shaw (Henry Cavill) works as a financial consultant in San Francisco. He's on a sailing trip in Spain with his parents and family. His company has failed, and he is constantly at odds with his father Martin Shaw (Bruce Willis). His family is kidnapped and he discovers that his father was secretly CIA, and everybody is looking for a mysterious briefcase. Jean Carrack (Sigourney Weaver) is a mysterious CIA agent whose loyalties and motives are unclear.

Henrry Cavill's character is a douche. He's a cold actor, and he plays an angry, annoying, stupid, arrogant unlikeable douche. There's some crazy Bourne Identity action going on, but I couldn't care less. I'm always two steps ahead of the character, and I want to punch his face.

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning

Will (Henry Cavill) goes to meet his family for a holiday in Spain, after some bad news about the state of his business affairs. After some family tensions pop up and a girl has an accident, he goes to get something for her...only to find his family gone. When he finds his dad Martin (Bruce Willis) again, he learns he's not quite who he thinks he is, and is wanted by CIA ball buster Carrack (Sigourney Weaver) for threatening US National Security. This leads to an out and out chase around Spain, where Will hooks up with Lucia (Veronica Echegui), a young girl eager to settle her own score with Will's charge, and may be more closer to him than he imagined.

Unlike other ageing action supremos Arnie and Sly, the third Planet Hollywood pay roller Bruce Willis is wisely taking more sideline, supporting roles in films like this, even if some of them are more lower grade and out the way. He makes his presence no less felt, even if he still can't generate the same kind of charisma he once did. Though it's doubtful even if he went back to his once wise cracking best, he could raise this tepid, perfunctory little film any notch above itself, a film that aims high, trying to be intricate and inventive, but just feeling more like Arnie's True Lies, with less humour and, well, Willis as the dad with the seemingly boring profession who turns out to be involved with a government agency.

I'm surprised to learn director Mabrouk El Mechri's previous feature was JCVD, action has been Jean Claude Van Damme's humorous testimonial to himself. That may explain the different, shaky style employed here, which makes an already clunky, join the dots story even harder to bear. Aside from Willis, Weaver in the villainess is the other old timer here but appears no more motivated by it than he is. Cavill and and Echegui are just typical of the easy eye candy that tends to be substituted for genuine talent nowadays, but probably gave this meandering none event more box office potential than it otherwise might have had. **

Yet again the adrenaline junky has been let loose in Hollywood, providing yet another inept and maladroit action thriller. Henry Cavill partners Bruce Willis and Sigourney Weaver to spurt a pair of pellets each and to exemplify how unprofessional and uneconomical acts such as The Cold Light of Day can be. This is very frustrating, we are supplied with two celebrated names in front of the camera and our future Super-man and yet again nonentity exists. Monotonous and dull can be used as a polite description.

The synopsis offers hope upon its initial read. A young, newly bankrupt businessman visits his beloved relations in Spain to reunite an ember of sparkle beyond his distressing life elsewhere. Shortly following his arrival, Will Shaw's (Henry Cavill) family are abducted due to the mystifying nature of his father's (Bruce Willis) profession and a stolen briefcase. Instead, the plot's impact offers an atomic effect as we experience tiresome family feuds and beleaguer pursuit sequences that fail to penetrate our motions of titillation. The wildness of these thrill rides are becoming a rhythmic bore, lacking stimulation and trepidation as time passes by. Over countless episodes of identical outtakes this genre is sadly plummeting into a cycle of banal melodramas with typical hysterics that ultimately leave our viewing experience in turmoil due to the lack of impulse from creators to formulate a new form of excitement. There is a discrete unwillingness to be a little more inventive, industrious and courageous and rather discouragingly Mabrouck El Mechri's efforts plummet directly into that category.

Abominably, astray from the collapse of chaotic clutter, this summer vacation fails to elucidate and expand upon Will's (Cavill) fateful breakdown of events. El Mechri ability to give an explanation is pitiable. We comprehend with the notion that Bruce Willis has deceived his son's intelligence by perverting his trust as a father and the truth behind his vocation, and despite the unsolved nature of a briefcase El Mechri fails to invite us into any inkling as to why the case bares such importance. Therefore, we experience a game of connotations which can barely last for so long.

It could be implied that Sigourney Weaver and Mr Willis encountered a lively affair by means of their opinion. Replicating Willis' Die Hard days must have been refreshing and granting Weaver a permit of fun with the appalling habit of providing someone with trigger delight infirmity once given ammunition to squander. As for Cavill, a little therapy and guidance is a necessity as it will dictate his success whilst costumed in an illustrious red and blue leotard and leggings.

So many movies like this one. Didn't really keep my attention. Only thing I really like about it is that Bruce is in it.

"The Cold Light of Day" is an all-action pact movie starring Bruce Willis and Sigourney Weaver and the plot plays out like a stressed out recipe for danger that Alfred Hitchcock might have enjoyed. Take a stressed-out American businessman, plop him into a foreign country with no luggage or ability to speak the language, then thrust him into a plot in which he must rescue his family from kidnappers while being pursued by bad guys and sought out by police who are either in on the conspiracy or who wrongly assume that he has killed a cop. OYY VAY! The only best part of this movie was that the movie ended.

Watching this movie was a long effort, Henry Cavill was great but really the only reason I kept watching.

The plot was a strange concept to begin with, characters all had what I felt was an odd back story that I didn't really care about.

Saw 'The Cold Light of Day' due to having an appreciation, if not exactly love, for action films. Also quite liked the idea for the film and with talent like Bruce Willis and Sigourney Weaver, responsible for two of film's most iconic roles (Willis with 'Die Hard' and Weaver with the 'Alien' films) one would think that it is hard to go wrong with them involved. So 'The Cold Light of Day' had potential to be halfway decent.

Halfway decent 'The Cold Light of Day' was not. By all means it is not unwatchable but to me and many others it was not a good film, wasting its potential in a big way and it does not do a good job at all making the premise believable or giving the talented cast anything worthwhile. These are my genuine feelings, giving 'The Cold Light of Day' a fair chance and actually wanting to enjoy it. There are just too many things done right for me to do so.

'The Cold Light of Day' has a few salvageable elements. The locations are beautiful to look at and show some gritty atmosphere too. The film does start off promisingly with a little excitement and grit and attempts at character building.

Willis and Joseph Mawle give the best performances. Both don't have an awful lot to work with, for someone who was top billed in marketing (most likely to draw in a wider audience to see it) Willis is dispatched too early and Mawle's role is underwritten. Both do the best they can, Mawle has some menace and Willis takes it seriously without being too serious or tired.

Cannot say the same for the rest of the cast. Henry Cavill is one bland and wooden lead and spends the whole time looking confused. Weaver has very little to do in a role that's both insipid and strange and has no menace or enthusiasm whatsoever, a real mix of ham and phoning in. The female lead overdoes it and can't remember everybody else. The characters are derivative ciphers and too underdeveloped with motivations that are barely there (what there are are silly and hard to take). Some also act stupidly, with some of the most incompetent and stupid writing for police officers in film. The direction has very little gusto or confidence and while the locations are great the filming and editing are utter chaos and look direct to video quality. The music and sound are often far too loud, too constant and often are ill-fitting while the blatant product placement that can be seen is distracting.

A couple of exciting action sequences are far outweighed by ones that have no tension, suspense or surprises and the chaotic filming and editing make them hard to follow the already uninspired and messy staging that is too closely indebted to the film they took inspiration from. The story is cardboard thin, far-fetched (the decision making towards the end are facepalm inducing) and erratically paced, most of the time rather dull thanks to useless padding while being rushed towards the easily foreseeable ending (every bit as predictable as the far too early and obvious reveal of the culprit). It is also confused as a result of trying to throw in far too much, some of which irrelevant to the story and coming over as pointless as additions. The script is cheese and cliché-ridden with no natural flow, much of it is impossible to take at face value.

On the whole, rather mediocre but not a complete waste of time. 4/10 Bethany Cox

Kidnapped American family near Madrid find themselves at the mercy of nefarious criminals all anxious to possess a mysterious suitcase picked up by the family's patriarch (Bruce Willis), a CIA agent who--for reasons unknown--went "rogue"; eldest son Henry Cavill (muscular and angry, with a jutting jaw) sets out to rescue the terrified clan. Screenwriters Scott Wiper and John Petro initially hope to combine dysfunctional family dynamics with spy genre-type action, but the only really interesting aspect of the film is the exotic locale. Director Mabrouk El Mechri can't keep the picture on track, eventually throwing everything at the screen simply for an effect--at the expense of logic, not to mention credibility. There's some suspense in the chase sequences, but too many tiresome clichés (such as Cavill, tied to a chair by thugs, being questioned and beat up at the same time). This certainly isn't a vehicle for Willis, who takes an early exit (and has no character to portray anyway). *1/2 from ****

For a movie that had both Bruce Willis and Sigourney Weaver on the cast list, then it faired surprisingly weak for an action thriller. And it didn't help the movie one bit that it was weighed down by a fairly generic and rather boring storyline.

The story in "The Cold Light of Day" is about Will (played by Henry Cavill) who is reunited with his family in Spain, though he is absentminded because of work issues back in USA. Will returns from a short trip to get supplies only to find the boat and his entire family missing. Someone has apparently kidnapped them and holding them hostage. It turns out that Will's father is not who he believes him to be. With the stakes high over a mysterious briefcase, it becomes a chase of cat and mouse without knowing whom to trust.

The story itself is straight forward and to the point, but it is just portrayed in a very boring and unappealing manner, making the movie suffer horribly from that. And the characters in the movie weren't all that interesting, and not even Bruce Willis nor Sigourney Weaver were able to pull off their usual great performances. In overall, the characters in the movie were one-dimensional and lacking proper personalities and traits.

And lingering on the plot, it does strike me fairly odd that a Wall Street trader is capable of outwitting and outgunning CIA agents and top trained people. That was just laughable.

"The Cold Light of Day" is mindless entertainment, and it wasn't exactly a boring movie. I was just suffering from a horrible storyline and a lack of personalities in the characters. I was adequately entertained throughout the movie, but this is definitely not the type of movie that you will watch another time after having seen it once.

Lots of violence, the main character gets choked, beat up, shot in the back and continues to move about showing no symptoms! The camera work is handheld and very jerky. No reason to like this film, I wanted to bail a number of times throughout! Glad it was free on HBO!

(2012) The Cold Light Of Day ACTION THRILLER

This is the much poorer version of much better action movies such as the Jason Bourne movies, and Taken. The first thing I want to say is that the title has nothing to do with the movie in general- at least as far as I know. Henry Cavill as Will is the star of this vehicle, and he agrees to go on a sailing trip with his dad Martin (Bruce Willis), his mom (Caroline Goodall) and his younger brother and his girlfriend to Spain, Madrid. As a result of Will paying too much attention to his phone, his dad gets angry throws it into the water, Will then swims back to shore to get a new phone, but upon coming back finds that his entire family had been gone. And as it turned out, his dad used to work for the CIA, and some group are holding them for ransom for a briefcase Will's dad used to steal from one of his missions. And some of the Spanish police are bad guys as well- for viewers are not given any indication about how some of them have suddenly become corrupt. Sigourney Weaver is the villain and an unconvincing one at that. The action scenes are so and so, since viewers would be baffled about his knowledge. It's quite bad with nothing original as it's full of chase sequences and more babbling.