Lawrence
Block’s Matthew Scudder knew there were eight million ways to die, but Vinnie
Jones only gets six. At least he will make full use of each of them. He will
not merely kill his nemesis, Sonny “Sundown” Garcia, he will target the drug lord’s
reputation, money, loved ones, sentimental attachments, and his very liberty.
However, narrative logic will be the first casualty of Nadeem Soumah’s 6 Ways to Die (trailer here), which opens this
Friday in New York.
“John
Doe” has it in for Garcia. He has his reasons, but he is very Picard about it
all, never setting foot from his old school Oldsmobuick. Somehow, he gets some
of the Los Angeles underworld’s most talented to come to him. He needs their skills
to torment Garcia and his valuable inside knowledge will make it worth their
while. It would seem that they will succeed spectacularly, since it is all told
in a bizarre flashback structure. Oh sure, there is a big reveal that changes
everything, but it makes absolutely no sense.
Still,
6 Ways offers an opportunity to watch
a veritable B–movie all-star team at work. For the starting line-up we have
Jones, Bai Ling, Dominique Swain, Vivica A. Fox, and Tom Sizemore. Most of them
have real roles to play, but Sizemore appears in a completely tangential
prologue. It looks like Soumah had only one day of shooting with him, so he
just improvised something on the fly. In reserve, 6 Ways also features Chris Jai Alex and Kinga Philipps, who maybe
aren’t so familiar, but have volumes of imdb credits already.
There
are times you have to ask just what does this movie think its doing, but not in
a resentful way. You sort of have to give it credit for being a grubby striver.
It is determined to impress us by riding its bike with no hands, no matter how
many times it wipes out on the pavement.
With
no action scenes whatsoever, Jones is completely wasted as the mystery man and
his role in the big twist defies the evidence of our senses. However, Alex
shows real B-movie star power as Frank Casper, the hitman. Bai Ling also adds
some serious cool as high class con artist June Lee. Unfortunately, Michael
Rene Walton is way too reserved and colorless for a ruthless heavy like Garcia.
Fortunately, chewing the scenery is not a problem for Fox, who vamps it up
something fierce as the corrupt cop, Veronica Smith.
