"Beatdown" writer & director Mike Gunther's "Set Up" qualifies as a fair to middling crime thriller with characters who are lucky if they live and stupid because they die. A volatile young hood betrays two life-long friends after they pull off a daring daylight diamond heist in the middle of downtown Grand Rapids, Michigan, in the winter. "Way of the Gun" actor Ryan Phillippe is splendidly cast as a double-crossing villain named Vincent Long who kills his two best friends without a qualm. Unfortunately, Vincent doesn't finish the job with coup de graces for both of his old pals. Predictably, Sonny (a subdued Curtis '50 Cents' Jackson) survives the shooting with a slug stuck in his collarbone that his tattoo artist friend Joey extracts. Afterward, our protagonist sets out to exact vengeance on the psychotic Vincent. Wrecking revenge is more complicated that Sonny imagined. Acting on a tip from Joey, Sonny interrupts a poker game among wiseguys. Since they know nothing about Vincent, Sonny makes a mistake and robs them. Sonny encounters a ruthless mob boss, Mr. Biggs (Bruce Willis in a cameo) and tangles with Russian mobsters as well as the Italian gunsels. Gunther never wears out his welcome with this trim 85-minute opus, but it is formula from fade-in to fade-out done with more finesse than is customary. This is another one of those thrillers that opens in the present and then flashes back into the past and ultimately goes full circle back to the present. We learn that Vincent decided to take the diamonds to bribe the warden at the prison where his dastardly dad is serving time to keep him out of the general population. Veteran character actor James Remar of "48 HRS" makes a strong impression as a racist prison inmate who is Vincent's father. Randy Couture of "The Expendables" has a minor role as Petey, a lame-brained thug who accidentally shoots himself when he is playing with gun. Shaun Toub plays a mysterious hit-man who skulks about on the periphery searching for the stolen diamonds. His first encounter with Vincent yields an amusing surprise. Gunther contrives some interesting dialogue, but after 45 minutes it looks like he is channeling Quentin Tarantino. Every time that a new character is introduced, we see a graphic that identifies them. During one scene, a criminal sells marijuana that has been smuggled into the United States in the intestinal track of a boa constrictor; the dealer calls it 'snakeweed' because customs doesn't want to X-ray a snake. "Punisher: War Zone" lenser Steve Gainer has an annoying habit of abruptly zooming in fractionally in most scenes as if to endow this film with a sense of spontaneity.
