Review: ‘Bullet to the Head’

Adapted from a French graphic novel, “Bullet to the Head” is an action movie that works as something of a throwback to the action films of the late 70s and 80s, though it has its fair share of modern touches to bring it in line with modern action movies, for both better and worse.

The story is some nonsensical mess about an aging hit man named Jimmy “Bobo” Bonomo (Sylvester Stallone, The Expendables 2, Rocky Balboa) who does a hit as contracted and then immediately gets set up by his employer, which results in the death of his hit man partner for whom Jimmy Bobo seemed to have some sort of affinity. So he sets out to find out the who’s and the why’s of the whole set up and to kill whomever is responsible. This includes the gigantic rival hit man Keegan (Jason Mamoa, Conan The Barbarian), and they build up nicely to the eventual one on one battle between the two assassins (and as shown in all the trailers and commercials, it’s an axe battle. Because why not). And to liven things up, out of town cop Taylor Kwon (Sung Kang, Fast Five) shows up and offers to help Jimmy Bobo get some answers in exchange for a tour through the criminal underworld so he can find the guys that set everything up. Because why not.

The story eventually involves a shady lawyer (Christian Slater, True Romance) and some corrupt businessman on crutches (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, The Thing, Killer Elite) and a real estate scheme that is identical to the one in the recent mediocre movie “Broken City.” When watching this movie it is literally 100% unnecessary to try to follow along with any of the illegal activities supposedly going on or why any of it is important, because it is totally evident that even director Walter Hill didn’t care about any of this stuff since he didn’t take any time to let any of it sink in or really bother to make any of it connect with the story as a whole. It is really just there as an excuse for this cop and this criminal to team up and drive around town together looking for a common enemy.

And this relationship is what Walter Hill focused on, and it is this relationship that makes this movie work. In an interview with the AV Club, Mr. Hill explained that he feels people often miscategorize these kind of movies as “buddy movies,” when in fact they are really “anti-buddy movies,” which makes sense. Taylor the cop and Jimmy the criminal are worlds apart in terms of the way they each look at life, and really at no point in this movie do they really like each other at all, they just tolerate each other and use each other for their own means. But of course they slowly and begrudgingly gain a measure of respect for each other as the movie progresses. Of course coming from the director of “48 Hrs,” one would expect the dynamic between these characters to work as well as it does.

Much of this movie does have a sweet throwback feel, especially thanks to Walter Hill’s style remaining mostly the same since the 80s. However, there is a little bit of the shaky-cam, quick editing post-modern action crap that has plagued all action movies these days, and while this isn’t overly done or really all that bad, it’s still a little suspect. It definitely feels like the 71-year old Hill is trying to “hip” things up a bit and adapt to what modern audiences expect in their movies these days, but it is fortunate that he didn’t commit to this and still gave us some nicely composed and edited action scenes. Also a symptom of modern movies and a total bummer? CGI blood, which shows up throughout this movie, alternating with some uses of practical effects, so again thank goodness they didn’t go 100% this route because digital blood in movies is always distracting.

There is also a thing where Taylor is always using his cell phone to call people for information and to check his emails and receive vital info and whatnot, so they throw in some banter between Bobo and Taylor about how Taylor uses the phone all the time and that’s where he gets his answers and whatnot, and it feels like Walter Hill, through Jimmy Bobo, is kind of dissing smartphones and people who over rely on them.

As a small action movie and as an anti-buddy movie, “Bullet to the Head” is pretty successful. It has a kind of cool noir feel to it by having Stallone give a gravelly voiced narration here and there that sounds like he’s reading right out of a Chandler novel, and they make good use of Stallone’s old photos and turn them into mug shots, giving us an interesting look at Stallone throughout the years. This is a fun movie, and while not original at all, at least it is well made, as well as quick.

Which reminds me, it is weird how they obviously cut some stuff out of the movie that would have made Jimmy Bobo more racist towards Asians, and some of this stuff is left in the movie but I have a feeling the stuff that was left in just couldn’t be removed because that would require reshoots or redubbing the dialogue or something that would cost money, and maybe they were afraid that Jimmy Bobo was coming across as way too unlikeable, because he is a pretty dastardly dude and talks shit about cops all the time and has very little regard for human life, so they were like, “Ehhhh, maybe we should make his less racist?” This is weird, especially since he has a line about Taylor using “kung fu from the homeland” that was featured in the trailer but got cut out of the film. Oh well.

Racist. Not racist. Doesn’t matter now. “Bullet to the Head” is good.