Guns Up

The year of 2022 became a little bit special for me for personal reasons. You might wonder what on Earth could it be that year that made me happy? Well, there are a couple of reasons such as Wales rock band Stereophonics released their 12th studio album Ouchya! ( that may not be their best studio album but still better than their 6th and 7th album ). This was also the year when action director Roland Emmerich released his box office disaster Moonfall, a film i actually enjoy just for being a disaster film with lots of CGI effects and had a good cast with actors Patrick Wilson ( The Conjuring franchise ), John Bradley ( who played the character Samwell Tarly in the TV series Game Of Thrones ) and Hale Berry ( the James Bond chick Jinx in Die Another Day ). Oh, we do get to see legendary actor Donald Sutherland as well for a short while. The bigger reason why the year 2022 felt special was that legendary action icon Bruce Willis was in a trilogy of action films called Detective Knight: Rogue, Detective Knight: Redemption and Detective Knight: Independence. Now, i know at the time these films were released we found out he have an illness known as the cognitive disorder afasia. And even if you can tell at certain moments he is not as he used to be, i do enjoy these tree films for being simple action movies. I actually ordered all three films on physical media from the UK. The first film Detective Knight: Rogue tells the story of Detective Knight ( Bruce Willis ), a very dedicated cop on the streets of Los Angeles, who will make sure justice is prevailed. As the city prepares to celebrate Halloween, mask-wearing armed robbers critically wounds Knight´s partner in a shootout following a heist. With Detective Knight in hot pursuit, the criminals behind the heist flee from L.A. to New York as they are hoping to succeed their mission. To say that Detective Knight: Rogue have anything different to offer than any other police action films would be wrong. What this film does manage to do is just deliver simple action entertainement if you just want a streaming evening with popcorn and sodas, especially if you grew up watching Bruce Willis on VHS back in the day. All of these three film is directed by Edward Drake and i found out this summer he released a new action comedy called Guns Up with comedian / actor Kevin James and actress Christina Ricci. Since i used to enjoy action comedies in the 80´s and 90´s, would this film be a positive surprise or is Guns Up just as forgettable as Los Del Rio´s dreadful 1996 Christmas single Macarena Christmas?

Mob henchman Ray Hayes ( Kevin James ) is fed up with his job working for criminals. He wants to start an ordinary life with his wife Alice Hayes ( Christina Ricci ) and their two children Sihobán Hayes ( Keana Marie ) and Henry Hayes ( Leo Easton Kelly ). Their plan is to run their own family diner to actually pursue their dreams. But as it turns out, leaving the mob is not the easiest way to go.

One of the issues i had with the Detective Knight trilogy was that some of the action scenes were not always that fun to watch. It was like director Edward Drake didn´t go all in to make certain scenes more effective. Thankfully in the action comedy Guns Up he seems to have made a decision to make much more memorable action scenes than in the Detective Knight franchise. I do have some issues with this film but let´s talk about the positive first. Actor Kevin James ( who i used to watch a lot in episodes of his comedy TV series The King Of Queens ) as the character Ray is quite different from some of his movies in the past. Much more tougher while he also seems to be a respectful man in his profession plus being a good family man. I like the combination of this character that he´s not only stone cold and can kill, there is a different side of his personality. Actress Christina Ricci as Ray´s wife Alice is in my opinion one of the better acting performances in this film. Always been a fan of Christina and love her ability to take on any kind of character. The strength of Guns Up is the most fun action scenes and when the action scenes becomes a bit over the top. On a technical level i think this is director Edward Drake´s best looking film, where he especially manage to capture some really nice action sequences. Now, we have to talk about what doesn´t really work. This is supposed to be an action comedy and they do attempt to try and be funny in certain scenes. If you are making a combination such as this you need to have comedy material that matches the action scenes and this is something that Guns Up unfortunately doesn´t have. It is basically some of the characters and the action scenes that makes this film work, where it misses out on certain important details. To be completely honest this is not a film that many people will remember because of the plot, you will be entertained for the moment and that´s good enough if you just want something not too complicated to watch. If you want shootouts, fighting and 90´s styled action film then Guns Up should fall into your taste. Director Edward Drake clearly knows how to make violent action films so im actually hoping for a sequel. What can i say im easy to entertain.

Rating: DDD