FIFTY/FIFTY
A film review by James Berardinelli
Copyright 1993 James Berardinelli
Date Released: 2/26/93 Running Length: 1:42 Rated: R (Violence, language)
Starring: Peter Weller, Robert Hays, Charles Martin Smith Director: Charles Martin Smith Producers: Maurice Singer and Raymond Wagner Screenplay: Dennis Shryack and Michael Butler Music: Peter Bernstein Released by Cannon Pictures
Jake (Peter Weller) and Sam (Robert Hays) are ex-CIA buddies who find themselves on the opposite side of the law in an uprising on a small South Pacific Island. When Jake attempts to save Sam's life, both of them find themselves on the run from the island's dictator. Their flight takes them to Singapore, where they encounter Martin Sprue (Charles Martin Smith), a current CIA operative who "recruits" the two into going back to the island and banding together a resistance group. The goal: dethrone the dictator.
Charles Martin Smith (whose best role still remains that from the 1987 film THE UNTOUCHABLES) joins a long list of directors who have appeared in their own films. Current members of this club such as Kenneth Branagh and Danny DeVito need not worry. If this is an example of Mr. Smith's work, he won't be doing much more directing.
Until one day before seeing this movie, I had never heard of FIFTY/FIFTY. Going into the theater, I had no idea what it was about. I hadn't seen one preview or TV promo, nor was there anything more in the newspaper than a three- by-nine ad. Usually, such lack of publicity means that the distributor expects a bust and isn't willing to sink any more money into a film than has already been lost. In this case, Cannon made a wise decision, although a direct-to-video release might have been an even better one.
FIFTY/FIFTY makes SNIPER look like high art. This is a bad, unoriginal movie with two heros running around shooting everything that moves and dodging bullets left and right. There are the requisite car chases, fist-fights, shoot-outs, bomb blasts, and helicopter attacks. There's even a love interest thrown in for good measure, but who will she choose - Jake or Sam (who cares)? Of course, the characters played by Hays and Weller are about as one- dimensional as they come. Even comic-book heros have more personality.
Admittedly, I'm not a big fan of mindless action films that run on auto-pilot, but occasionally, if done with flair, these can be fun. FIFTY/FIFTY is not done with anything remotely resembling style. Its a formula piece put together on a limited budget with a novice director and a bunch of actors who look like they'd rather be anywhere else. If you need any more convincing information about how unpleasant this film is, consider this: Robert Hays, a man whose only worthwhile role has been as the wimp in AIRPLANE, plays a macho leading man who, when he's not blowing things up, spends most of his time quipping one-liners. Need I say more?
Of course, for those determined to find something positive to say about this film, it does have one or two nicely-filmed action scenes, and some of the lines spoken by the main characters are worthy of a chuckle or two. However, you'll probably laugh more at scenes that weren't intended to be funny. That is, if you're still sitting in the theater watching this garbage long enough to get to those moments.
Rating: 3.5 (D-, *)
- James Berardinelli (blake7@cc.bellcore.com)
.
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews