Freelancers

OK, I recognized a few names in this movie: Robert De Niro, Forrest Whittaker, Dana Delaney, and 50 Cent. Based on the aforementioned names, I rented this movie. The bottom line is I got duped. The movie is below-average in every aspect:screenplay, acting,and directing. Basically, the whole film feels generic and half-assed. What is surprising is that the characters are all superficial and one-dimensional. This is to be expected from the likes of 50 Cent and some of the supporting characters, but from Robert De Niro and even Forrest Whittaker, it is incomprehensible.

In the past, the name Robert De Niro would have conjured up memories of incredible movies from the 70's and 80's such as Taxi Driver, Goodfellas, Godfather 2,Mean Streets, The Deer Hunter, etc. However, Robert De Niro has not made a quality film in almost a decade. What happened? Has wealth and fame completely enervated his passion for acting?

Very Disappointing.

This movie is an overall quite entertaining and mostly fast paced action thriller that though lacks of depth. The story simply features too many stereotypes and is therefor sometimes even mildly amusing even if this surely wasn't the intention of the makers of this b-movie.

The film is about three crooks that get out of prison and get to work in the corrupt New York City Police Department. Soon, they get involved in the local crime scene and must learn how to survive in tough circumstances where nobody's left whom they can trust in. At the same time, the main character portrayed by a weak but not completely bad Curtis James Jackson III wants to resolve the secret of his father's assassination that he witnessed as a child.

The problem with this movie is that it almost has no clear guiding line and some events happen without any logical reason whatsoever. Sometimes, the characters rapidly change their moods and appear almost schizophrenic which is very odd. Apart of a slightly stronger and even quite entertaining ending, at least three quarters of the movie go straight to nowhere or are highly predictable. Most of the actors and especially the cop roles are simply not credible at all and even happen to be quite ridiculous. Sometimes, the movie just feels like a longer 50 Cent video clip with senseless violence, gratuitous sex, a very minimalistic story line and some cameo appearances by a couple of good actors such as the strong Robert De Niro or the now deceased and surprisingly convincing actor Pedro Armendáriz Junior where one ends up asking oneself why these gifted guys are starring in such a bad movie.

In the end, there isn't much interest in watching this film. Especially the story is quite random and predictable. The low budget flick features almost more shots of nocturnal New York City every ten minutes that are taken from a plain than gripping action or suspense scenes. The only reason to watch this flick are the solid appearances of Robert De Niro as well as Pedro Armendáriz Junior or if you simply are a big fan of 50 Cent. Objectively seen, his acting is of a rather average quality and lacks of emotion and quality but he surely has a quite cool image and mostly promotes himself and his music in this movie. You can grab this flick at a cheap price for a loan if you have not much else to do and want to switch your brain off for one hour and a half but apart of that there definitely isn't much in this.

In New York, three smalltime hoodlums are arrested and years later they become NYPD officers. When they are celebrating in a bar, Captain Joe Sarcone (Robert De Niro) summons Jonas "Malo" Maldonado (50 Cent) to sit at his table. Sarcose was the partner of Malo's deceased father and he invites Malo to join his team of corrupt cops. The rookie Malo teams up with the dirty Dennis LaRue (Forest Whitaker) and he begins his career of crime in the police department. But when his former trainer Lydia Vecchio (Dana Delany), whose husband worked at the Internal Affairs when he was murdered, shows evidences of his father's death to him, Malo returns to the side of the law to seek revenge against those that killed his father.

"Freelancers" is a movie with a messy story about corrupt NYPD officers. The lead character is a hoodlum that becomes a dirty cop, but comes back to the side of the law to revenge the death of his father and ends invited to join the Internal Affairs. Lydia has conclusive evidences against Sarcose and his gang, but they are not enough to arrest the dirty cop that is not under surveillance. The great cast is lost in a poor screenplay and a weak direction. My vote is four.

Title (Brazil): "Assassinos de Aluguel" ("Hired Killers")

Has great cast and what should have been a great movie, well wasn't. Felt forced and nothing really surprising. 3 teenagers who were arrested are set free and become cops. There was nothing unique about this movie. Cop turns bad who gets worse who wants to redeem his life.

50 cent plays the main character who is a criminal on the outside with a honest person trying to get out. Seems every step forward requires him to take 2 steps to the wrong side of the law of which he is more then willing to do. I guess they were hoping 50 cent would help this film, but to me he just doesn't have it and looks like a fish out of water still.

Not the worst movie I have seen.

The strength of this film is found in the secondary cast who support a film with pretentions but whose main weakness is the lack of charm and dramatic capacity of Curtis Jackson. When someone is good at something they will always be and that is perfectly visible in people like Whitaker, De Niro or Pedro Armendáriz Jr. Who had his swan song in this film. With tense and well-directed moments, the film's tone tends to fade at the end, where the entire weight of the film falls on Jackson, who is very limited to carry out a script that he could and should have been better. If it weren't for the secondaries it would be a bad movie.