Homefront
Actors: Jason Statham, Kate Bosworth, James Franco
Release Date: Monday 30th November -0001
Genre(s): Action, Thriller
Running time: 100 minutes
While it seems unlikely that any future film students will give much thought to the career of Jason Statham, which amounts to little more than kicking people in the head with slightly differing amounts of facial hair, the same cannot be said for James Franco. In 2013 alone he’s headlined a blockbuster (Oz The Great & Powerful), played a real-life porn king (Lovelace), portrayed a heightened version of himself (This Is The End), co-directed and starred in a documentary about gay sex in movies (Interior. Leather Bar), and now here he is, playing a bad guy in a low-rent 80’s action thriller knock-off. You get the impression that if a few things had been switched up, and the entire movie had been shot from his character’s perspective, we would’ve had a much better movie. There but for the grace of God…
Statham plays a former undercover agent who moves to a tiny town in the middle of nowhere with his young daughter to get a fresh start. He’s not there long before he runs into trouble with a local meth-using mother (an unrecognisably brilliant Kate Bosworth), who then goes running to her meth-dealing brother (Franco), who then stirs up all kinds of trouble for Statham. Who, as well all know too well by now, is not someone you mess with.
The script, written by Sylvester Stallone, is one of the most unoriginal hack jobs of the year, with nary a decent one-liner or plot turn to be seen. Director Gary Fleder, whose career today can be defined as “entertaining, but forgettable” with the likes of Kiss The Girls and Don’t Say A Word, brings only forgettable to the table this time around.
It’s always fun to watch Statham kick people in the head, because he does it with more charisma and believability than pretty much anyone else in the action game right now, and he does get into some quite bone-crunchy fight scenes, but there aren’t enough of these to push Homefront into "watchable" territory. Just re-watch Crank instead.
