Just the premise of this film sounds horrible. An ex-Hollywood stunt driver, arrested on a minor crime, is broken out of prison and forced to drive the getaway car for a plot to kidnap the President of the United States. Would probably make a fun video game. As a film? Well...
This movie is kind of like a magic show. It's point is to distract you and make you think that something it happening. You sit there thinking "Wow, this movie sucks...Cool, a car blew up!" And they use every car chase cliché in the book. Cars bunny-hopping inexplicably. Driving through boxes of fruit while people jump out of the way. They even have a woman pushing a freaking baby carriage. I yank you not, a freaking baby carriage! There's a line a character mutters after a huge explosion: "Now tell me that doesn't give you a hard on". Somewhere, Jerry Bruckheimer is stroking himself in agreement. I'd bet all that I own that with a little bit of a reworked plot, a bigger budget and a few A-List stars, this would be a total Bruckheimer flick.
As I said before, the story is dull and predictable. The acting is wooden and hard to swallow. Even Madsen, whom I rented this solely on the fact that he's on the cover holding a gun, feels like he's going through the motions and just looks bored with the entire thing. But it does have shut-your-brain-off boom-booms, and they are done fairly well. Even if it does take only a half dozen people, a couple of which are untrained in any sort of combat, to take down an entire evil military base. If it's ever on late at night and the batteries on the remote are dead, I'd probably watch it again. So if you get a chance to see it for free and you honest to God have nothing better to do, it beats the hell out of some films I've seen.
