The Hard Way has Michael Jai White as a former special forces guy whose brother is killed in Eastern Europe, so he goes there to find out what happened to him. As he starts to unravel the truth, things don't look good--for the people who were involved in his brother's killing that is, because White is on the revenge warpath. There to help him out is Luke Goss, playing that guy with the five o'clock shadow and knit cap who wears a leather jacket over a hoodie. As White's brother's former partner, he wants revenge too. Looking at that cover, I wonder who the revenge will be targeted at? Who's that third actor there?...
For a 2019 DTV actioner, this wasn't horrible. A big part of that is White carries it, and director Keoni Waxman let's him carry it, which really helps. I liked Luke Goss in support, I just don't get why he has to have an American accent all the time. All that being said, like these modern DTV actioners tend to do, this one got dark. We see one guy getting tortured, we see a family get executed by masked gunmen in their home, and White and Goss's love interests get killed, seemingly for no reason--it's not like White needed more of a reason for revenge. Still, the fights were good, as was the action, and sometimes with these modern DTV flicks, if you can at least get that, you should walk away happy.
Michael Jai White proves once again that he's a bad, bad man. One of the things he does which I really love, is he keeps the "art" in martial arts, making his fights theatrical and entertaining to watch while he's taking out baddies. This is now his 16th film on the DTVC, which begs the question: is the Hall of Fame on the horizon? Tags aren't the only thing, age is another, and while White would be the youngest Hall of Famer, he also would be older than Van Damme, Dolph, Lorenzo Lamas, and Gary Daniels were when they became Hall of Famers. So then we look at contributions to the world of DTV, and I think he has that too, especially with Black Dynamite, one of those seminal DTV flicks that has gone down as one of the best ever. Probably the closest comp to him is Mark Dacascos, and he's not in yet, but maybe both need stronger consideration as we get into our induction process this October.
I keep banging this drum about Luke Goss, but I think this movie more than any highlights my issue with him having an American accent. It's not that it's a bad American accent--on the contrary, it's really good, which I guess is why when he's cast he uses it so much--but I just feel like as an American he's not really set apart from the other myriad American DTV actors out there, but with his natural English accent that would set him apart. In this film it made zero sense, because it took place in Eastern Europe. It's just as believable that he'd be a Brit as he'd be an American, so why not just be a Brit? I think we've maybe seen him in 5 or 6 films here at the DTVC, and the only film he did where he used his natural accent was Tekken, and it was great! Hopefully he'll do more of that in future roles, but two others I have in the can, War Pigs and Cartels, both feature him with an American accent, so it may never happen again.
This is the seventh Keoni Waxman film we've done at the DTVC, but only the third that doesn't have Seagal in it, the others being Hunt to Kill and Sweepers. We always joke that he's the Seagal Whisperer, because he seems to get the best out of him when he works with him; but seeing him here in working with White, he does the same job in accentuating what White does best. I think out of the 7 Waxman films we've done to this point, this is my favorite, and maybe the biggest reason why is how he sets White up as a bad, bad man, and then lets White have at it, and we as a viewer get to enjoy it. Hopefully we'll see more White/Waxman collaborations in the future.
Finding out that this was distributed by Netflix, I decided to see if it was available anywhere else, and it doesn't look like it. As I've discussed when looking at other Netflix films, it's an odd thing, that when Netflix makes it--or distributes it in this case--that's it, you can stream it on Netflix with your monthly subscription, and when they decide to up the fee, you need to pay, or you don't get the movie. No blu-ray, no prime, no Tubi. From a filmmaker's standpoint I wonder how they feel about that. Is it better to have it constantly turning up on people's suggestions when they log into Netflix, or have it in as many places as possible so people have many choices? I personally prefer the latter, and I'm not even saying it has to be on blu-ray, but Prime, Tubi, Vudu, whatever in addition to Netflix would be nice.
But people have heard me make that rant before, so with that we wrap this up. I think if you're looking for more Michael Jai White, this one is pretty good. If you're already paying for Netflix anyway, you might as well give it shot.
For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9815714
No comments:
Post a Comment