Review: 6 Bullets

Shot in Romania but set in Moldova, Yank MMA fighter and loving father Andrew Fayden (Joe Flanigan) has just flown in with his wife (Kiwi actress Anna-Louise Plowman) and adorable teen daughter (Charlotte Beaumont) for his upcoming fight. However, before that, someone nicks off with the daughter, and when the local authorities don’t seem to be moving quick enough, Fayden is advised by embassy worker Selwyn (Kristopher Van Varenberg) to seeking out former mercenary Samson Gaul (Jean-Claude Van Damme). Gaul, who happens to be Selwyn’s dad, has a history of rescuing kids from human trafficking, but was forced by cop Kvitko (Steve Nicolson, a Brit credibly putting on an accent) to retire after a rescue job went horribly, messily wrong. Now Gaul is a humble butcher with seemingly suicidal thoughts and ghostly visions of the innocent lives his gung-ho rescue tactics took away. He declines to track the girl down. Because it’s a movie, he naturally (and quickly) has a change of heart. Bianca Bree plays a local skank who is part of the human trafficking process. 

 

Steven Seagal hasn’t made an above average film since the early 90s, outside of his atypical supporting role in “Machete”. Jean-Claude Van Damme, meanwhile, hasn’t always hit it out of the park since becoming a mostly direct-to-DVD guy, but he has delivered several above average efforts: “Replicant”, “The Expendables 2”, “JCVD”, “Until Death”, “Assassination Games”, “Pound of Flesh”, and “Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning”. He’s also provided several other films that aren’t bad like “Universal Soldier: Regeneration”, “The Shepherd”, and “Wake of Death”. This 2012 action flick from Ernie Barbarash (“Cube Zero”, “Assassination Games”, “Hardwired”) adds one more to the above average column, and since Van Damme hasn’t made nearly as many outright stinkers in recent years as Seagal (“Derailed” is the only one that springs to mind that I’ve seen), I think it’s safe to say that Van Damme is running away with this unofficial battle. He certainly appears to have more ambition than the pudgy Aikido master and Putin ally.

 

We open with a pretty fun, exciting rescue set-piece that shows, if not perhaps doing all of his own stunts/fights, Van Damme is much more convincing than Seagal, and probably does most of the work. He’s perfectly cast here as an ex-mercenary whose gung-ho efforts in rescuing kids from human trafficking result in the inadvertent deaths of some other kids. This is our opening scene, people. Needless to say, Van Damme’s got a lot of mental shit to recover from straight away. Speaking of mental shit one needs to recover from, we later see him wearing a deli apron, which is a bizarre sight you might have trouble reconciling with. He hides vodka and a gun under the counter, just to let you know he’s in a fucking miserable state of mind. No one broods quite like Van Damme, and if not breaking new ground anymore, at least Van Damme’s version of settling into comfortable territory doesn’t come across as condescending laziness the way it can with Seagal, who just doesn’t seem to care about giving any more than the bare minimum. Van Damme has simply found something that works for him, that doesn’t mean he’s coasting. It’s a perfect role for him and he doesn’t disappoint in portraying a guy who seriously wants to be left the fuck alone. He has the perfect face for playing guys you don’t want to fuck with because he looks like he’s lost the ability to give a fuck about anyone or anything anymore, including himself. That kind of guy will fuck you up seven ways without even blinking.

 

The supporting cast give generally pretty fine performances (Steve Nicolson and Anna-Louise Plowman in particular), but the casting of TV actor Joe Flanigan as an MMA fighter is a bit of an issue. For starters, Flanigan, despite his wannabe UFC fighter tattoos, is quite clearly not a fighter, and none of his few fighting moments employ anything close to mixed martial arts. And since he’s not the star of the film, it makes his character, who as I said is meant to be a bad arse fighter, seem incredibly weak. And that’s before you find out that his wife is the one who knows how to use a gun, not him. Why not castrate him while you’re at it? Then again, we’re talking about a film where JCVD’s first day back on the ‘job’ so to speak, after his previous disaster, has him using explosives yet again. ‘Coz it worked so well last time, right? So the film’s obviously not perfect.

 

On the plus side, whilst there’s no acting standout among them, the bad guys here are the worst of the worst of humanity and very easy to root against. I also think it’s a better film on this rather unseemly subject than the thematically similar “Skin Trade”. It’s quite a grim film in regards to tone, with some very rough imagery to deal with, but I don’t think it deals with the subject in an especially exploitative way. Meanwhile, Van Damme once again seems to have gotten his kids jobs, and although far from good actors, both Kristopher Van Varenberg and Bianca Bree give pretty much their best performances to date. It’s a bit of a shame that Barbarash is so keen on sepia tones and once again bizarrely uses projection shots for scenes inside a car (ala Barbarash’s otherwise fine “Pound of Flesh”), because otherwise it’s one of his best-looking films.

 

It’s probably only worth a soft recommendation, but this is a pretty decent action flick centred on human trafficking and a seriously depressed Jean-Claude Van Damme. He delivers, as does the film for the most part, so long as you’re not expecting “Wrong Bet” (or whatever it’s called wherever you happen to live). A pretty solid supporting cast helps. Scripted by Chad Law (“Close Range” with Scott Adkins, “Hero Wanted”, a mediocre attempt at turning Cuba Gooding Jr. into latter-day Charlie Bronson) and Evan Law (“Hero Wanted”).

 

Rating: B-