Review: Standoff

12 year-old budding photographer Ella Ballentine witnesses and photographs professional killer Laurence Fishburne mowing down people at a funeral whilst attending the funeral of her own parents. She escapes his clutches and heads to the homestead of Thomas Jane, who is still mourning the loss of a son and the collapse of his marriage. He’s not in a good head space, wants nothing to do with the little girl, but when gun-toting Fishburne rocks up to tie up a ‘loose end’, Jane’s better instincts kick in.

                  

You just know this isn’t going to be good. Two fairly well-known names, no other stars. A running time less than 90 minutes. A generic title. Made in Canada. And you’ve absolutely, positively never, ever heard of it. Yeah, this isn’t good. This 2016 generic thriller from writer/director Adam Alleca (co-writer of the remake of “Last House on the Left”, and the slightly underrated Stephen King film “Cell”) gives you everything the title suggests but almost literally nothing else. A bare minimum, no-surprises thriller where once the basics are set-up, it pretty much has nowhere of interest to go.

Three fairly decent performances are nowhere near enough to keep it afloat, including Laurence Fishburne refreshingly playing an outright villain for seemingly the first time in a good while (in a role that admittedly seems written for a pontificating Samuel L. Jackson). Fishburne gets a memorable entrance assassinating people left and right at a funeral, but after that the film is all talk, all wait, and very occasional shooting. Worse, the screenplay neuters the Fishburne character by having him make increasingly stupid moves. The guy is supposedly a top assassin, yet he burns two chances to kill the girl, and he also knocks a cop out instead of shooting him dead. Y’know, like a professional killer would. And that’s just two such dumbfuck moves.

It’s just not much of anything, certainly not much of interest. Although some might find it a tad confusing, I will say I did rather appreciate that the film gets off and running quickly, but when it’s heading for a limited, stagey, and talky destination within 20 minutes…that’s almost an hour’s worth of thumb-twiddling. I guess you could also argue that the short time frame means that washed-up Jane sure does get his shit together rather quickly, which is unfortunate. Why did stars Jane and Fishburne take on Executive Producer credits for this empty thriller? (As well as Hayden Christensen, for some odd reason. He’s not in the film at all). Jane is fine in the lead role, young Ella Ballentine is even better, and Fishburne rarely fails to deliver in the film’s best performance. However, for what is a very simple idea, there needed to be more character depth, humour, or a genuine filmmaker/stylist to make this stand out. Without any of that, the cast aren’t able to do much.

This isn’t much of a film and doesn’t really require much more discussion. Skip it, though I appear to have a minority view on this one. So bear that in mind, I guess.

Rating: C-