Review: Close Range

Scott Adkins plays Iraq war deserter Colt MacReady, who has been living off the grid since leaving the war. Colt rescues his niece from a nasty Mexican drug lord (Tony Perez) and taking her back to his estranged sister (Caitlin Keats) at her remote Arizona property. Unfortunately, Colt is unwittingly in possession of an important flash drive that the drug lord wants back, bringing violent trouble their way. The drug cartel is aided by a crooked dipshit sheriff (Nick Chinlund) to boot. Thankfully, Colt is somewhat of a one-man Army and is ready to defend his family at all costs.

 

If you enjoyed the Jean-Claude Van Damme action-drama “Nowhere to Run”, you might also enjoy what director Isaac Florentine (“Undisputed II: Last Man Standing”, “Undisputed III: Redemption” and “Ninja: Shadow of a Tear”) and star Scott Adkins deliver with this 2015 action film. As scripted by Chad Law (Van Damme’s quite good “6 Bullets”) and Shane Dax Taylor it’s very similar in plot to that 1993 Van Damme film, and whilst I’m a bit mild on “Nowhere to Run”, this one worked well enough for me…if only just. Truly, if I never see another action film with a flash drive as a McGuffin, I’ll die a happy man. I’m over that cliché. So plotting is not this film’s strength, in fact it stops the film from being even better than it is. What it is, is otherwise quite watchable.

 

What particularly makes this film superior to the earlier film is the emphasis on action. “Nowhere to Run” was Van Damme trying to show off his ‘softer’ side if I remember the marketing of the time correctly. The results were tolerable but far from his best work before or since. In fact, I remember being quite let down by it the first time I saw it as a teenager. Here, Florentine and Adkins just give you the basics of plot and character and then let the bullets fly for most of the next hour or so. You can’t really be terribly disappointed with that. Adkins is absolutely not fucking around in this film, which proves both cool and kinda funny to me in an absurdist way. Action-wise it may not be “Undisputed II” or “Accident Man”-levels of awesome and it’s largely knife and gunplay-based (with some Judo-type stuff thrown in too), but if you like straight-forward brutal action and gunfire, Adkins and Florentine deliver plenty of that. True to the film’s title a shit load of people get shot, punched, kicked or stabbed at close range more often than not. I will say, one poor guy getting shivved in the dick earns a bit of sympathy from me. That was a touch overkill there, Scott.

 

Acting-wise Adkins is as usual here – just OK at best, though his American accent is better than in some of his films. Florentine is smart enough to give Adkins a couple of decent actors to help him out, with veteran bad guy Nick Chinlund and lead villain Tony Perez coming off best. The only thing less trustworthy than Nick Chinlund in a movie is Nick Chinlund in a movie wearing a badge. A dependable bad guy presence, though his character at least has some shading where he’s more pathetic and greedy than evil. At the back of the pack by a country mile is leading lady Caitlin Keats, who is wooden as hell. I don’t know if that’s just her or if she was bored, but either way she’s not up to snuff.

 

Florentine’s direction is mostly a plus, being an action movie veteran he gives the film a bit of snap and some vitality. His style is a touch too MTV for my taste here, with unnecessary whooshing title cards for Perez’s random (and soon to be dead) henchmen, and a bit too much slow-mo. One of the best things here is the Morricone-esque music score by Stephen Edwards (“Undisputed II: Last Man Standing”, “Boyka: Undisputed IV”), which is really cool.

 

Perhaps a bit of a soft recommendation, this is a pretty no-frills action film with a better director than usual, and lots of cool action. However, the plot is seriously tired, some of the stylistic flourishes are annoying, and leading lady Caitlin Keats is dead weight. Still, with this much action you won’t be bored. It’s better than similar films like “Nowhere to Run” and the ghastly “Rambo: Last Blood”.

 

Rating: B-

 

 

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