Available now on Netflix, the Joe Lynch directed Point Blank has enough originality that viewers won’t think back to the 1967 original.
To be straightforward, we’re looking at the result of a muscular nurse teaming up with an even more muscular killer that try to save their respective loved ones (one a brother and one a wife). But for the sake of a review, an ER nurse (Anthony Mackie) gets mixed up in a homicide coverup and his wife gets taken as collateral until the hospitalized shooter (Frank Grillo) is released.
There are many things I didn’t like in this film. Anthony Mackie’s character Paul gets his ass beat, repeatedly, for the first 13 minutes of the movie. He was an average lead at best and his performance was often overshadowed by Frank Grillo. Grillo was a great bad guy for hire as Abe but his onscreen chemistry with Paul was pretty bad until the last 20 minutes or so. That was probably by design but to hear two men argue for over an hour gets seen as annoying (instead of seeing any semblance of character development or conjuring a relationship).
The best part of the movie is the final 35 minutes where we see a good combination of action and comedy. The plot is a good one, Abe is working with crooked cops and was double-crossed. Everyone’s after him because of some ‘insurance’ he kept in case things were to ever go awry.
I give Point Blank a 6.5 out of 10. It’s not horrible but it’s not great. Two Marvel Studios alums come together for an action movie and you can tell immediately it probably wasn’t the best idea. The story is good but they should’ve used a better pairing. When you’re bored this weekend and need a film to pass the time, this will do the trick.
-Jon J.