TL;DR – A solid, if not very imaginative action flick   

Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene

Review –

It has been a while since I have sat down and watched a solid action flick, the kind where you can get out some popcorn, sit back and not think that hard about what is going on. Well, today we have an example of just that with Point Blank which is a reimaging of À Bout Portant, a French film from a couple of years ago.

So to set the scene, we open with Abe (Frank Grillo) smashing his way out of a window leaving a dead District Attorney in his wake. On the run, with a gunshot wound, he texts his brother Mateo (Christian Cooke) for a pickup, but just when he arrives Abe is hit by a car. Later that night Paul (Anthony Mackie) is doing his rounds as a nurse at the local hospital leaving his very pregnant wife Taryn (Teyonah Parris) at home resting when he comes to examine the John Doe. Only to be ambushed by a masked figure, dramatically changing his life.  

For what is generally speaking an action film there actually isn’t all that much action, but what is there is really well done. There are a couple of nice single-take style shots, and some good cross-cutting during car chases to keep the excitement up. All of this was set to a really rocking soundtrack at the start, which had me really interested because it has been a while since I have heard a film with a rock musical backing. However, this soon gives way to 80s ballads, and it becomes clear that the music is just there to cover up for there not being any real musical score.

When it comes to the acting, this one area where I think Point Blank hits above the median. Anthony Mackie is always a solid performer and here is no exception. He is the audience surrogate in the film as the normal guy dragged into this world, and he pulls that off really well, even if you do have to pretend that he could not take down Christian Cooke in a fight. One area that really surprised me was just how much range Frank Grillo showed in this film. In the past, I have only seen him play an evil henchman or generic soldier guy. Here he is kind of that, but he also has to carry a lot of the emotional side of the film as the big brother trying to look out for his screw-up baby brother. Also, it is always good to see Marcia Gay Harden play a straight up badass.

With the story, look, it not the most imaginative set-up that I have seen, but it does do a serviceable job of moving the plot along. It was nice to see the film set in Cincinnati, which is a changeup from a lot these mob/police films that are usually all in Boston or New York. One thing that was a bit odd was a huge tone shift in the third act to something a bit more comical, that I am not sure really worked.

In the end, do we recommend Point Blank? Well yes, I think we do. Look, if this was a film in the cinemas that you had to pay money to go see, probably not. However, for a film that you can grab some snacks and sit down in front of the TV for an hour and a half and chill, yer it fits that bill.     

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Twitter Here, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

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Credits – All images were created by the cast, crew, and production companies of Point Blank
Directed by – Joe Lynch
Screenplay by – Adam G. Simon
Based on – Point Blank by Fred Cavayé and Guillaume Lemans
Music by – Mitch Lee
Cinematography by – Juan Miguel Azpiroz
Edited by – Jim Page
Production/Distribution Companies – War Party & Netflix
Starring – Anthony Mackie, Frank Grillo, Marcia Gay Harden, Christian Cooke, Teyonah Parris, Boris McGiver, Daniel R. Hill & Markice “Kesan” Moore  
Rating – Australia: MA15+;