Film Review: A MAN APART (2003)

Director: F. Gary Gray
Writers: Christian Gudegast & Paul Scheuring
Running time: 109 mins (approx)
Certification (UK): 18

Genre: Action/Adventure/Drama
UK Release date: 4^th April 2003

Watched on Sky+ Wednesday 11^th January 2012.

PLEASE NOTE: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS IN THIS REVIEW.

This is maybe not one of the films I would have chosen; however, on recommendation (you know who you are) I decided to give it a chance. There’s nothing earth shattering about it I’m afraid, just another run of the mill Action/Adventure with plenty of plot twists and an enormous body count. The Mexican drug cartels are the bad guys this time and a rough-tough DEA agent and his partner are the good guys. I’ll tell you what I thought after this brief summary.

A group of DEA agents have been allowed into Mexico to participate in the arrest of one of the drug cartel’s top men, Memo Lucero. Amongst the agents are Sean Vetter and his partner, Demetrius Hicks. The take down goes well and Lucero ends up in a US jail. At this point a character named ‘Diablo’ makes himself known; taking over parts of Lucero’s operation and killing his people. Eventually the ‘Diablo’ cartel turns their attention to Sean; attacks his house and kills his wife. Seeking revenge, Sean visits Lucero in jail; he cannot initially help him, but when his own wife is killed, things change. Can Sean and Demetrius track down who is behind ‘Diablo’? To do so they will have to sometimes stray outside the law! I won’t say any more or the Spoiler Police (DEA division) will have my badge (again).

Quite well made though I did find the action scenes a little confusing at times. Decent performances all round, although I felt nobody was really stretched; and so honourable mentions go to; Vin Diesel as Sean Vetter, Larenz Tate as Demetrius Hicks, Timothy Olyphant, woefully underused, as Hollywood Jack and Geno Silva as Memo Lucero.

Many films have been made on this subject before and there have been many films of this genre. The hard thing to do is to make a film of this type that doesn’t fall into cliché. Unfortunately this one does, and it suffers for it. A much better film of this type (IMO) would be Tony Scott’s ‘Man on Fire’ (2004). I guess I can sum it up by saying ‘it does what it says on the tin’, this film is what it is and, although a little too cliché for my liking, is still worth a look if this is your kind of thing.

My score: 5.9/10.

IMDb Score: 5.8/10 (based on 19,342 votes at the time of going to press).
http://uk.imdb.com/title/tt0266465/

Rotten Tomatoes ‘Tomatometer’ Score: 11/100 (based on 130 reviews counted at the time of going to press).
Rotten Tomatoes ‘Audience’ Score: 40/100 (based on 82,184 user ratings counted at the time of going to press).
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/man_apart/

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FAVOURITE QUOTES:
Sean: They call us down here. They take away our weapons? They expect us to go into a building full of drunken cartel gunmen unarmed? I mean, that isn't fun.
Ty Frost: You're not gettin' paid to have fun. Good luck, gentlemen.

Sean: I like this car.
Hollywood Jack: Hey, nice truck.
Sean: Thanks.
Hollywood Jack: In fact, I was thinking about trading this one in for, like, seven of those.

Sean: Ah... Let me get your license and registration, please.
Hollywood Jack: May I um... ask what I did?
Sean: Yeah, your mud flaps. You got no mud flaps on this.
Hollywood Jack: It's a fuckin' Porsche.
Sean: Well you won't have to worry about it when you trade it in for the truck.

LINKS:
(Note: All were working at the time of going to press)
Official Site: http://www.newline.com/properties/manaparta.html
Trailer: