After another complex undercover operation, special agent Broker (Jason Statham) and his daughter move to the backwoods, where he plans to start a new life. But in the small town where he settles, he quickly crosses paths with a drug addict (Kate Bosworth), who in turn sics her brother (James Franco), a local drug lord, on Broker. To expand his distribution network, the drug lord decides to hand over the newcomer to bikers who have a grudge against Broker. Big mistake.
When Stallone wrote the script, he intended to play the main role, but over time he realized that he was too old for a hero with a ten-year-old daughter.
It is well known that one of the surest ways to show how cool the main character is is to unleash even cooler opponents on him, as if to say, you are only as cool as your enemy. Why Sylvester Stallone (who wrote the script) and Gary Fleder don’t know this is a big question, but in “Homefront,” Jason Statham faces a brood of the most talentless and stupid villains in the history of his on-screen superheroism. It is clear that the authors wanted to add “drama” to the plot and present Broker’s opponents as “complex and multifaceted” personalities, but in fact, it turned out to be almost a comedy about how Jason Statham spends an hour and a half chasing provincial thugs through the woods.
The Villains
The stated budget of the film is $70 million, while Statham’s last “solo” film to gross over $100 million, “Transporter 3,” was made five years ago.
Nominally, the main villain here is Alligator, played by James Franco. The actor is by no means of Statham’s stature, so he had to take it with negative charisma and coolness of temper, but it was not to be. Alligator is immediately presented as a caring family man and, in general, not such a bad guy - in one of the first scenes, he “teaches a lesson” to a group of young drug addicts, but first of all, he lets the youngest of them, a 17-year-old girl, go in peace. Even in the final part, when the obligatory running around with Broker’s daughter begins, Alligator is stubbornly presented as a “good bad guy” cornered. At least, he is in no hurry to kill anyone, and, in fact, the worst thing he will do to Broker is disembowel his daughter’s stuffed bunny.
The other villains are written in the same way - Kate Bosworth’s character, an incredibly disgusting junkie at the beginning of the film, turns into a natural sweetheart by the middle, and Winona Ryder, who plays Alligator’s accomplice, doesn’t know what she wants herself - she either kidnaps Broker’s daughter or tries to let her go. Yes, there are also bikers led by Frank Grillo, but we only manage to find out that he is a “real psycho” (as Ryder tells us in a trembling voice), after which Broker, without batting an eye, sends the visiting gang to the next world.
Action and Statham’s Performance
In principle, you can also get pleasure from the process of “sending to the next world” under certain conditions, but not this time. All the action is filmed with a restless camera, which does not allow you to see anything at all, and is shredded into small cabbage with epileptic editing, so that the rare clearly presented blows here are already a gift. All this is very sad, because Statham himself in “Homefront” is in great shape - both physical and, as strange as it may sound in relation to such a film, acting.