Review: All the Devil’s Men

Milo Gibson plays an ex-Navy SEAL and supposed ‘war junkie’ who hasn’t been home to his family in a long time. Now he’s taking his place in a CIA-funded squad of mercs who do ‘off the books’ jobs, this despite Gibson preferring to be a loner. Of course. Alongside grizzled comrade William Fichtner and cocky new acquaintance Gbenga Akinnagbe they are to track down no-good turncoats Joseph Millson and Elliot Cowan, the former of whose life Gibson once saved. Now former CIA guy Cowan (who has become radicalised and apparently been aiding the Taliban, I might add) and Millson are involved in an arms exchange with some nasty Russians. Sylvia Hoeks plays Gibson’s tough-talking CIA handler.

 

I guess writer-director Matthew Hope (“The Veteran” with Toby Kebbell) wanted Milo Gibson – son of Mad Mel – to be the next big thing in action with this 2018 action-thriller. Unfortunately Milo has none of his dad’s charisma, talent, or presence based on his efforts here and Hope brings nothing of interest either. By the way, Gibson The Younger also looks like Gerard Butler crossed with Luke Hemsworth’s less attractive stunt double which once realised can’t be unseen.

 

As for the film, Hope gives us a heck of an opening scene but nothing after it arouses any interest or excitement at all. Joseph Millson is quite good as one of the bad guys, and William Fichtner has an interesting world-weariness to him. However, the latter exits before the end of the first act. So that leaves us with the dreadfully dull Gibson, woefully miscast Sylvia Hoeks, and the irritating Tyrese Gibson-esque action-comedy stylings of a guy named Gbenga Akinnagbe. He’s a constant source of annoyance and belongs in a different kind of film altogether. As for Hoeks, any time she tries to sound tough you can’t help but laugh. She just doesn’t have it in her, some people just don’t. I’d say she’s a bit too young for the part anyway. Lead villain Elliot Cowan gives off no sense of menace whatsoever and is given a ridiculously over-written speech where he threatens to do awful things to a guy’s family. It’s nothing that anyone would say unless they were in a fictional film and the character is like a subpar “24” villain-for-an-episode at best. You’ll wish you were watching “24”, which for most seasons was quite compelling. As an action film, this is entirely enervated because there’s nothing much here to care about, not with the modern day Robert Ginty in the lead and the clichéd plotting. There’s lots of shooting, none of it remotely interesting or exciting.

 

Tedious action-thriller with dead weight in the lead, and mostly pretty poor performances elsewhere. Good work by Fichtner and Millson isn’t near enough to make you care about any of this. A total bomb.

 

Rating: D