This action-packed, dark comedy/adventure starts out with a bang and ends with a whimper. When we are first introduced to Porter (Mel Gibson), we are told in voice over that basically, he's a bad man. Not only are we told, he shows us exactly how bad he is. This bit was done brilliantly, however, don't let it mislead you--the rest of the film is not exactly like the beginning. The reason why Porter is so annoyed is because he was double-crossed by a business partner of his a while back and had $70,000 stolen from him. He's back now, and he wants what belongs to him. A good set up. Everything about the film is still dandy until it falls into typical Mel Gibson, "Lethal Weapon" conventions with the introduction of Kris Kristopherson's character (though Kris is always a great bad guy). Even the once brilliant writing at this point turns into complete cheese. What happened? Well, for those of you that keep up with the gossip surrounding film productions, you know that the studio and Gibson clashed with the writer/director and ended up reshooting a third of the film. The reasoning? Gibson and the studio felt that the film was too dark. Well, congratulations Mel, you've turned what could have been a very original and respectable film into a cliche copy of your Lethal Weapon films. My opinion is, see the original film (yes, this is a remake) _Point Blank_ with Lee Marvin.
