Nothing comes out between Avengers and Deadpool, so here is some stupid shit about Gabrielle Union fighting robbers.
Union stars as Shaun and her father just died after being hit by a van. The van collision is the opening scene and the movie implies that it wasn’t an accident, but that’s never mentioned again so fuck it. The father was rich and owns a massive house in the woods complete with a high-tech security system and a safe containing millions of dollars. Shaun goes to the house with her two kids, a bunch of guys show up to rob it, and then every home invasion movie ever made takes place.
As for positives, Gabrielle Union may not be a household name, but she does carry the film and does an admirable job with little material. If you were also a teenaged boy in the late 90s/early 2000s, you might remember her from such roles as the hot black chick in Bring It On or as the hot black chick in She’s All That, or her breakout role as the hot black chick in 10 Things I Hate About You. I don’t recall seeing her much since then, but she still looks good even though her two kids in the movie keep telling her how old she is, which depressed the fucking hell out of me. Anyway, she injects some believability into the role and fluctuates effectively between intensity and panic as her children are threatened. The performances of the two kids, especially the daughter, are also surprisingly good. The family dynamic in the film works and would work better in a movie where something fucking happens.
And, really, not a goddamn thing happens for long stretches of this film. There is about 10 minutes of story here that’s stretched out using two incredibly cliched methods. First, a new character will show up purely to be killed because the screenwriters realized that they couldn’t fill up the time with the existing cast. Why did that realtor show in the middle of the night? Because somebody had to be killed, goddamn it, because nothing happened for a long time. Second, people don’t do logical things because it would cause the movie to end. Shaun is outside for almost the entire film. Does she simply leave and get help? Fuck no, because then the movie would be too short. The villains have repeated opportunities to kill her. Do they do it? Fuck no, because then the movie would end and we need to get respectably close to 90 minutes, people! The film even resorts to a glaringly hilarious continuity error to prolong itself. The son grabs the gun and shoots at the lead villain. It cuts away. It cuts back and the villain has the gun again and is chasing the kids. I guess the fucking shot missed, because then the movie would end. It’s rare to see a movie go to those lengths to fight its own conclusion.
Besides that, the whole movie is a lot of nothing. The directing is bland, the villains are bland and you never once feel that these people might actually die. The dialogue, though, does often border on hilarity. You see, the film was released for Mother’s Day and holy fuck was the movie written with that bit of marketing in mind. Much of the dialogue is the kind of cringe-inducing, hokey Hallmark card bullshit that new mothers will flood into your Facebook feed (“I’m not a strong woman, I’m just a mother!” “My children are not my weakness, they are my strength!” and etc.). We fucking get it, lady. They’re your kids. Now fucking leave and get help, you incompetent jackwagon.
This isn’t terrible, it certainly isn’t good, you probably aren’t going to see it anyway. Who cares. Next week is Deadpool 2.
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