The Heavy - Movie Review

“The Heavy” is a heavy film, but not in the sense you might think. Who is the heavy? Is it ex-con turned (debt?) collector Mitchell “Boots” Mason (Gary Stretch). Maybe it’s his brother Christian Mason (Adrian Paul), family golden boy turned semi-corrupt candidate for British Prime Minister. Or possibly its police investigator Dunn (Vinnie Jones), the obligatory “crocked cop” out to kill Boots for past vendettas. No, I contend the heavy must refer to the script. “The Heavy” is so plot heavy it drowns in its own bullets. Which there are too few of flying in this action crime drama.

This lackluster outing for first time writer/director Marcus Warren proves to much for its own good. “The Heavy” spends much of the movie following around “Boots” Mason as he carries out various collections, drug trades and other rather boring fair. In fact we spend more time watching Boots Mason get his ass kicked by different people and drive his sports car, than anything else. For an action film we don’t get much action, at least in the form of watching our hero, you know, do something.

It’s not all bad hear though, we also see Mason as he attempts to interact with his family after being essentially disowned for being convicted of murder. He is approached by his father (Christopher Lee) with a proposition to meet with his brother Christian, who is a politician dying from a rare disease that requires a donor with unique similarities, namely Boot’s. The problem being, Christian was the star witness for the prosecution in Boot’s trial that sent him to jail. Many of these scenes prove, surprisingly, to be the best in the film pairing Stretch and Paul in some fairly well acted sequences. These sibling vs. sibling stints actually bring the film up to some respectability mostly carried by Adrian Paul’s great performance.

Meanwhile, as all of this carries on, we spend stints with a non-linear sequence of Boots breaking into a flat and taking an American girl name Claire (Shannyn Sossamon) as a hostage, taking place after the rest of the events of the film. At this point, over an hour in, I was wondering where this was all headed. The film seems to be headed for a dramatic reveal but instead finds itself undermined by its own storytelling, as the reveal is underwhelming and poorly timed. Action movie fans wont be entirely uninterested, but overall there isn’t much else here.

All things said, this films, and Marcus Warren, seem to just lack some amount of follow-through. A bullet pointed list of expected twists topped by a rather misplaced CGI bullet-time sequence at the end that only results in more outdated visual gloss. One of the minute pluses managed by this flick is British trance DJ Paul Oakenfold’s soundtrack, but even that seems to get dragged through the mud. Someone informed writer/director Marcus Warren that his soundtrack was about the only good thing in his movie, so he peppered useless scenes of Boots driving around London to Oakenfold’s blasting music throughout the film. With too few pluses to keep this heavy ship from sinking, an uninspired script backed with over jittery (Not in a good “Bourne” way) cinematography “The Heavy” just presents to many problems and too few results.

In general the DVD is standard fair, coming with four “Behind-the-Scenes” mini-docs that don’t present much that is interesting. “Lifting ‘The Heavy’” is a small piece on the stunt work in the film showing how a few (of the rather tacked on) sequences where planned and executed. “‘Just One More Job’ - The Making of The Heavy” is a sequence of cast interviews discussing how they portrayed their characters and their development (or lack there of). “The Heavy - A Behind the Scene Music Journey” is more of Oakenfold’s music set to footage of the movie production (useless fair). Bringing up the rear is “A Heavy Movie Set” which is a glorified iPhoto slideshow collection of production stills set to, as you guessed, more Oakenfold.

Also tacked on as special features are four television spots and the films theatrical trailer, people still think these are special features? Even for a DVD in the age of Blu-Rays the product as a whole underwhelms, reflecting the low-budget nature of the movie. Completing the package is English and Spanish subtitles, 5.1 Dolby Digital support, and a “Also from Lionsgate” featurette of advertisements.

‘The Heavy” tries really hard to be liked, but sadly ends up sputtering out nothing more than a few cheap thrills. Marcus Warren’s film comes out of the oven incredibly undercooked and lumpy, leaving those that tried to give the film a chance with a sour taste. With an on-paper cast that could have made a good showing sadly defeated by a deflated script, that should not have been forced to fill a whole feature sized dish. There were some pluses here though, some of the acting as well as the music and the ending do keep this romp rather watchable. All said and done, action fans if you really want to check this one out look for it On Demand or on DVD at Amazon. The street date was 12/21/10 for those dying to get there hands on this one.

The Heavy

Pop Culture Beast Rating:

4/10