Movie Reviews

Jimmy Bonomo (Sylvester Stallone) and Louis Blanchard (Jon Seda) are two hitmen who get ambushed when they go and collect their money after their last job. Blanchard doesn’t make it, which leaves Bonomo behind as one pissed off dude out for revenge. Meanwhile a cop called Taylor Kwan (Sung Kang) just lost his partner and starts to investigate. Kwan finds out the two murders are connected and strikes an unlikely alliance with Bonomo to find out who’s behind them.

Based on the graphic novel “Du plomb dans la tête” by Alexis Nolent, Bullet To The Head offers a twist on the tried and true formula of the buddy cop movie. It is a gritty action flick that’s submerged in a neo-noir atmosphere that works well for the story. We find out that hitmen apparently only come out at night and Stallone sounds like he’s chewing on barbed wire during the voice-over bits. It all helps to set the perfect backdrop for the violence and action sequences that follow. And there’s a lot of that going around, probably making up for the lack of depth when it comes to character development.

I’m pretty sure Bullet To The Head won’t be remembered as director Walter Hill’s masterpiece. The dialogues sometimes border on shameful and there’s hardly any chemistry between Stallone and Kang but Hill – who previously made 48 Hrs and Red Heat – knows the tricks of the trade and managed to churn out a decent enough action flick.