(No spoilers)


Source: timesnewroman.ro

'You swore not to talk about it! RAAAA!'

So its only been a mere week since I wrote my review for Joe and Nicolas Cage already has another movie for us to talk about! Whoever is in charge of marketing these movies needs to seriously re-think what they're doing because I honestly laughed when I saw that this movie was already out in a few countries. If there's one thing to take away from this movie, however, its another reminder that Nicolas Cage is seriously one of the best actors who ever lived. While also providing some hard hitting, pulse pouding action.

I don't think I'd be alone in saying that when I heard about the movie/saw the trailer that I thought that it looked like Stolen 2 + more violence. I remember when I found out about this movie last year I was a bit disappointed if I'm honest because it looked like a combination of Seeking Justice and Stolen because the description on imdb is as follows 'When the Russian mob kidnaps the daughter of a reformed criminal, he rounds up his old crew and seeks his own brand of justice.' I can't be the only one who sees this right? It does look very similar, I just thought to myself 'nooo Nicolas! What are you doing?'

Source: flickeringmyth.com

Nicolas Cage means business!

This is a prime example of why I think its very important to watch a movie from start to finish. Nicolas Cage plays Paul Maguire a former criminal gone clean who has left his demons in the past but his past hasn't forgotten him. The movie starts and its standard action movie build up stuff, it sort of reminded me of Trespass in a way, the family is all in a house and the parents are ready to do something, nothing special but then it just builds up and builds up until the explosive finale that actually throws a few welcome, albeit unexpected, twists and turns our way before fading out to a very reflective ending. Not to say that I wouldn't watch a movie, especially a Nicolas Cage movie, because the first five minutes bored me because I give every movie  a chance and to write a fair, informed review after it. But I read a couple of reviews that said they got bored of the movie and stopped it after about 20 minutes and that really bugged me because they missed out on a movie that does away with some standard action elements and tries to do something new, but thats their loss. 

Although, from the trailers it does indeed suggest that their will be a lot of action involved and oh boy is there ever. Each scene that has action in it is hard hitting, expertly shot and exciting to watch. There is something so fulfilling about seeing Nicolas Cage going around kicking ass that is so much fun to watch, even if it doesn't make much sense. This movie isn't for the squeamish though, the things the characters do to one another, while I wouldn't say its particularly graphic you know what you're looking at when it happens. The movie has a nice contrast of scenes of people actually talking, which allows the audience to breath between the action and while there is some development with the twists and turns that this movie offers but besides that what you see is what you get, which isn't necessarily a bad thing but its something to comment on.

Source: cinema.de

You better watch out...

Going back onto a point I made earlier, Nicolas Cage in this movie... Wow. Maybe it helps that I only saw Joe a week ago but I was thinking to myself while I was watching this, Nicolas Cage REALLY is one of the best actors who has ever worked in Hollywood. In Joe he's very quiet, thoughtful and damaged but in this he's very loud and emotional. I don't know how he does it but he manages to bring new things to this character even if its something small like talking over people because he's having an argument with them. At the start of the movie he seems relatively calm- he is the every man. But as the movie keeps progressing his old ways seem to return to him until he fully unleashes as you can see in the image above. Similar to Joe in the way he plays an ex-criminal, this seems like this is the other way that type of person could go. Where Joe tried to keep a lid on his anger and fuel it for good, Paul gives into his anger and unleashes it on whoever gets in his way. Quite interesting in that regard but of course unrelated. But at least they both share their hatred of police! Paul definitely did some stupid things, for example he keeps punching someone while telling them not to die, does that really sound like that makes sense to you? Briefly talking about other actors, its nice to see Danny Glover in something again and Peter Stormare is always a treat to see, he manages to play all his characters differently even if he is in a film for about five minutes (He was Dino Velvet in 8MM and Joe's superior in Windtalkers) The best way I can describe Paul Maguire is if you took Terence McDonagh and Castor Troy and put them together,and with that you can guess what you're in for... Crazy Nic Cage!!!

Sometimes I questioned what I saw, I won't say too much but for example someone shoots someone in public, twice, with no one noticing, its little things like that, that made me question the movie but nothing major happened to ruin the experience for me, like a plot hole. If I may compare it to Stolen for just a little bit, I could see Stolen actually happening in real life, the one man army trying to find his daughter again by evading cops and using old leads to track down the friend turned foe. While I don't doubt that things that transpire in Tokarev happen in real life, with the vigilante group going around killing people, I don't think they'd be able to evade the cops for as much as they did, especially because they weren't exactly quiet about what they did or even cover themselves up after they do a crime, they seem to go into a club, kill people and just leave and no one ever tracks them down or puts two and two together. Considering the dark tone of the movie it seems like these things would be addressed even with the fact its just an action movie. The direction was very frantic also, after about 30 minutes passed the movie just went on nitro and kept getting more and more hectic until the ending, with occasional pit stops along the way. 

Source:ytimg.com

Some people who read my review sometimes and comment on the fact that I don't focus negatives too much (not this website), I respond to this by saying that I am not a movie snob, I don't go into an action movie ready to hate it because it won't stimulate my brain similarly I wouldn't watch Inception and then complain by saying it didn't make me laugh. Tokarev is an action movie, you watch it to entertain you, things blow up and people fight and then it finished but not before offering some new storylines and some things that I didn't see coming which was welcomed. While I did notice some things that didn't make 100% sense, I didn't just hate the movie from that point on and deem it as rubbish. Not to say I like every movie I see because people would tell you that I dislike more than I like but now I am getting off topic. At the end of the day was it fun? Yes. Did I enjoy it? Yes. So its job is complete. It definitely seems like an action movie done right, the action hits hard and you really get into it. It isn't art but it didn't try to be, it knew what it was and ran with it and its a nice movie to add to the Nicolas Cage filmography. The best way I described it on Facebook was: Seeking Justice + Stolen + Bangkok Dangerous x Kick-Ass = Tokarev and if that sounds appealing to you, then go for it! 

Thank you for reading!  (Im going to stop giving movies a score out of 5)