Antonio
Banderas stars as a hotshot attorney whose world is shattered when his wife and
daughter are brutally murdered. As
penance, he gets drunk and wanders into underground fight clubs where random bare-knuckles
brawlers beat the shit out of him. One
day it finally dawns on him to actually train himself to fight so he can use
his newfound skills to take down the bad guys who killed his family. He then takes a vow of silence and refuses to
speak until he finds the murderers.
On
the surface, Acts of Vengeance feels like a generic revenge thriller. It has all the scenes we’d expect from the
subgenre. We have workaholic Banderas
missing his daughter’s talent show, the obligatory funeral scene, and the part
where he dogs the detective on the case to find the killers. Since it was directed by Isaac (Undisputed 3)
Florentine, there are plenty of random kickboxing sequences. Although they don’t feel particularly organic
to the story, it’s an oddball touch that helps to make the movie memorable.
Another
weird touch: Banderas taking his vow of
silence. (I guess it would make a good
double feature with Cockfighter.) The
way he comes about it is even funnier.
He gets thrown through a book store window and uses a book of Marcus Aurelius
to stop the bleeding. He sees finding the book as a sign and takes Aurelius' teachings to heart. You don’t see shit
like that every day.
One
strike against it: It’s pretty easy to
tell who the killer is going to be. Since
there are only two or three other name stars in the cast (each of whom get very
little screen time), the suspect list isn’t hard to whittle down. Speaking of the supporting cast, Robert
Forster has a great scene as Banderas’ grieving father in-law where he chews
him out at his wife’s grave. Jonathon Schaech
does a fine job as a detective and Karl Urban lends solid support as a cop.
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