MARAUDERS (2016) * ½

Bruce Willis stars in another Grindstone Entertainment picture, so named for their penchant for grinding out generic DTV actioners.  The good news is, this one features a slightly better supporting cast than usual.  Unfortunately, it’s undermined by a standard issue plot, unnecessary overlength, and a visibly disinterested performance by Willis.  

A gang of vicious bank robbers (who wear cool skull masks that look like a cross between one of the masks in The Strangers and the Punisher skull) exclusively rob banks owned by a rich fat cat (Willis).  Christopher Meloni is the Fed on their trail trying to bring them down.  His efforts are hampered by a loose cannon cop (Johnathon Schaech) with a penchant for sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong.

Willis has been accused of phoning it in as of late.  The fact that many of his scenes in Marauders require him to talk on the telephone, so he’s quite literally phoning it in, doesn’t help.  It’s also obvious due to the wonky editing and sound that he wasn’t even in the same room as some of his fellow actors during some scenes.  When Willis and Meloni are finally together, it feels like they’re acting in completely different movies.  Unlike Willis, Meloni shows signs of a pulse, while Willis almost seems oblivious there’s a movie being filmed around him.

Meloni may give the movie a faint spark, but his police procedural scenes are sluggish at best.  At least the bank robbery scenes are competently staged.  Too bad the plot spins its wheels for the better part of the running time.  

The supporting cast features a lot of familiar faces, but they are spread thin and given very little to do.  Dave Bautista plays a member of Meloni’s team and Adrian Grenier (who also was in director Steven C. Miller’s much better Arsenal alongside Schaech) is the wet-behind-the-ears rookie.  While Meloni and Bautista’s halfhearted banter occasionally breathes a little life into the flick, you can only perform so much CPR before you’ve got to call it.