An excellent job by the four principal actors and an understated steady style from the director result in a B++ sort of B movie. This is without question a straight to DVD type flick; however, everyone does such a terrific job it overcomes the formulaic sensibilities to achieve that wonderful "gee-I'll-watch-again" status.
If you're an insomniac like me, you treasure that sort of thing. There are only so many "Three Days of the Condors" out there; you have to start digging into B movie territory if you are up worrying about work and you want to feed the Jones at 2 a.m.
This is a great snack.
Kudos to Swanson (the shooter), Madsen (the controller), Dukes (the patsy), and Faison (the fix-it man). Every one of the actors rises above his/her set role (thanks in part to an intelligent script), or more specifically finds the nuances within it that make each one human.
Lesser actors would have turned each one of these characters into a stereotype. By walking the tightrope, each of these pros keep the movie tense and compelling. Madsen is properly amoral with a sense of comic distraction captured by the director with Madsen's Hawaiian shirts. Faison side-steps the script's only flaw -- a bit too stereotypical on the "seduce a brother" stuff -- with a smart, sharp persona that is readily believable as the wizard of electronic spy-craft (and street gun supplier).
Swanson and Dukes are most impressive as the two critical characters. Both put remarkable nuances, bound by restraint, in their characterizations of the high level, straight military by-the-books black-ops sniper (Swanson) and the nationally famous newscaster (Dukes) that she refuses to kill when she sees his little girl watching. Dukes plays his character's self-righteousness and naiveté just right while maintaining a definite sense of humanity and genuine interest in what's simply right. (The script helps with the inclusion of danger to his daughter as a motivator). His heroic actions in the end are remarkably believable with no separation from his already established TV newsreader persona.
Swanson is outstanding. Period. She renders a very believable soldier-turned-anti-terrorist assassin. Her take on this character is cold, tough, but still human. She is committed to simple justice: bad guys should die, good guys, not. And she displays the hard internal struggle of such an agent who confronts -- with fury -- the fact that her own people have her killing the good guys instead of the bad. She doesn't make more of it; she doesn't make less of it. And to the director's credit, there's only enough exploitation of her good looks to state the very simple obvious.
Finally, kudos to the script-writer and director on the story itself. Notice that Swanson's character's fall into conscience is not sudden -- it's clear that she's not only responding to the fact that this is a national figure, and a man standing in front of his child, but also that she's already ragged from the previous job of killing an American military officer in front of his wife. She has already started to "question orders." The trained killer who wouldn't necessarily have held up shooting on senseless command once may do it twice - and that's how the film opens.
How it proceeds from there is a pleasure to watch.
If you're an insomniac like me, you treasure that sort of thing. There are only so many "Three Days of the Condors" out there; you have to start digging into B movie territory if you are up worrying about work and you want to feed the Jones at 2 a.m.
This is a great snack.
Kudos to Swanson (the shooter), Madsen (the controller), Dukes (the patsy), and Faison (the fix-it man). Every one of the actors rises above his/her set role (thanks in part to an intelligent script), or more specifically finds the nuances within it that make each one human.
Lesser actors would have turned each one of these characters into a stereotype. By walking the tightrope, each of these pros keep the movie tense and compelling. Madsen is properly amoral with a sense of comic distraction captured by the director with Madsen's Hawaiian shirts. Faison side-steps the script's only flaw -- a bit too stereotypical on the "seduce a brother" stuff -- with a smart, sharp persona that is readily believable as the wizard of electronic spy-craft (and street gun supplier).
Swanson and Dukes are most impressive as the two critical characters. Both put remarkable nuances, bound by restraint, in their characterizations of the high level, straight military by-the-books black-ops sniper (Swanson) and the nationally famous newscaster (Dukes) that she refuses to kill when she sees his little girl watching. Dukes plays his character's self-righteousness and naiveté just right while maintaining a definite sense of humanity and genuine interest in what's simply right. (The script helps with the inclusion of danger to his daughter as a motivator). His heroic actions in the end are remarkably believable with no separation from his already established TV newsreader persona.
Swanson is outstanding. Period. She renders a very believable soldier-turned-anti-terrorist assassin. Her take on this character is cold, tough, but still human. She is committed to simple justice: bad guys should die, good guys, not. And she displays the hard internal struggle of such an agent who confronts -- with fury -- the fact that her own people have her killing the good guys instead of the bad. She doesn't make more of it; she doesn't make less of it. And to the director's credit, there's only enough exploitation of her good looks to state the very simple obvious.
Finally, kudos to the script-writer and director on the story itself. Notice that Swanson's character's fall into conscience is not sudden -- it's clear that she's not only responding to the fact that this is a national figure, and a man standing in front of his child, but also that she's already ragged from the previous job of killing an American military officer in front of his wife. She has already started to "question orders." The trained killer who wouldn't necessarily have held up shooting on senseless command once may do it twice - and that's how the film opens.
How it proceeds from there is a pleasure to watch.