Cold Light of Day
Director: Mabrouk El Mechri
Release Date: Monday 30th November -0001
Genre(s): Action
Running time: 93 minutes
Henry Cavill has been stacking up the pre-Superman productions before he dons the red cape in 2013. But after the mundane Immortals and this absolute clunker of a thriller, he better hope his time in tights is a mammoth enough hit for audiences to forget his pre-Supes work.
Cavill is an uptight American businessman visiting his father (a typically smug Bruce Willis) in Spain, when his family are kidnapped from their yacht while he’s at shore. Pretty sharpish he finds out his aul’ lad is in fact a CIA Agent and by all accounts, a bit of a bollocks. He must try to avoid being clipped by Sigourney Weaver’s spook, while also tracking down his family before they become fish food.
There was a point during The Cold Light of Day when I just completely switched off and started admiring how handsome Henry Cavill is. There are enough close-ups of his chiselled mush to really emphasise the good looks of the British star. Personally , I believe his casting was a ploy by the producers to distract from how god awful this production is - “screw the script, look at that jawline, even straight critics will be transfixed.”
I didn’t so much hate this clunky film, more felt complete indifference towards it. Willis looks like he could give less of a shit, Weaver is paying bills while Cavill tries desperately to inject some urgency to proceedings by looking frazzled a lot. He certainly has potential as a viable leading man, but at this stage, pre-Superman, he needs much stronger roles to avoid the inevitable typecasting after that film eventually arrives.
The cinematic equivalent of a drunken score in a grimy bar; sloppy, cringe-worthy and something you won’t ever wanna do again.
