Set Up

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")

The screenplay feels like a teenager wrote it, who learned to cuss by his wangster older brother, and now uses his overly foul language in the most inappropriate situations.

On top of the horrific acting and terrible dialogue, the characters seem to feel the need to describe what they're doing as their doing it. And hey 50-cent, it's called pronunciation, try it!

The plot can't decide what type of action movie it wants to be. It feels like the writers just strung a series of their favorite movie scenes from all their favorite movies randomly together. There is no action leading to the next action, just 50 running around sticking a gun in everyone's face and explaining the plot over and over again.

Question: WHY ARE ALL THE CHARACTERS EXPLAINING TO ME WHAT I'M WATCH?! Answer: it's a dumbed-down movie for those people who are always asking questions during a movie.

Oh and the music sucks, sounds like stock music or the temp soundtrack was never changed.

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.

The movie was a waste of time and i am really disappointed. I could describe this movie as a "wanna be movie"...the director wants to be Guy Ritchie but he is not...50 cent wants to be an actor but he is not, Ryan Phillipe wants to be a bad guy but he is not, because of his baby face...when you see Bruce Willis on the cover you expect him to be actually present in the movie but he is not...everything in this project is poor...i really gave it a chance and watched all 90 min but it was a waste of time. The act was too slow, it tried to build up characters but it failed...many things were simply not there as script and acting. I had hard time understanding the words of 50 cent, Ryan Phillipe was OK but this character was simply not for him...he matches other roles much better...Bruce Willis was OK too but he had a very small and insignificant role.