VICE (2015) **

Bruce Willis stars as an arrogant entrepreneur who’s created an artificial environment called Vice where users can live out all their violent fantasies.  The people they cheat, rape, and kill are nothing more than robots whose memory get erased every time they “die”.  One of the robots (Ambyr Childers) escape into the “real” world and Willis stops at nothing to bring her back.  Thomas Jane is the detective on the case who’s been itching for an excuse to bring Vice to its knees.

You know when you play Grand Theft Auto, and you go around killing and stealing?  Well, Vice is sort of the next step in the evolutionary chain.  Imagine if one of the helpless extras in the video game became self-aware.  How would they feel about being treated as a human target?  It’s an interesting question, but the movie clumsily answers it.

I just don’t think there was enough of a budget here to fully flesh out the admittedly OK idea.  There are too few shootouts and car chases to qualify it as an action flick and the sci-fi elements are rather low rent.  It often feels like a half-assed version of a Phillip K. Dick story, and no one wants half-assed Dick, trust me.

Willis is sorely miscast as the suave and sinister owner of Vice.  It’s also hard to buy him as this genius tech wizard/asshole billionaire.  The character is essentially an egomaniacal Bond villain and the role really needed someone like John Malkovich or Willem Dafoe to make it work.  

Jane does a solid job in the hero role.  He brings a sense of world-weariness to the character that suits it nicely.  He’s also pretty funny too.  I particularly liked the scene where his captain says, “You’re one step away from losing your badge” and Jane starts fumbling around in his pockets looking for it.  Maybe with more injections of humor here and there, Vice would’ve been a fun time.  As it is, it’s about as generic and forgettable as they come.