Stoics
never lose their cool. The pursuit of vengeance taking would therefore seem at
odds with practice of stoicism, but anyone who can roughly merge them together
will be one dangerous customer. A grieving father inspired by Marcus Aurelius
will try to do exactly that in Isaac Florentine’s Acts of Vengeance (trailer here), which
opens tomorrow in New York.
Presumably
Frank Valera’s voice-overs are an interior monologue, because he has taken a secular
vow of silence after the murder of his wife and young daughter. He ruefully
admits he used to talk quite a bit as a slimy defense attorney. No, the irony
that he used to defend criminals possibly like the ones who killed Sue and
Olivia Valera is not lost on him. For a while, he tortures himself by acting as
a human punching bag in underground steel cage fights. However, a chance
encounter with the Emperor’s Meditations changes
his perspective. It says: “Punish only those who are guilty of the crime.”
Right, sounds like a plan.
Valera
starts snooping around the post-industrial crime scene neighborhood, drawing
the attention of the Russian mob. He will take out some frustration on their
enforcers, becoming the protector of a nurse at a low-income clinic, who had
been forced to supply them traffickable prescription drugs. However, the true
identity of his wife’s killer will be a third act revelation most viewers will
guess, simply due to the limited cast of characters.
Despite
the unsurprising surprise, Acts is
suitably lean and agile payback thriller. Florentine is one of the best in the
business at rendering street-level action (frankly, he is overdue for a New
York retrospective). Once again, his fight scenes are cleanly legible (no shaky
cam here), but Florentine adds a further personal stamp by also appearing
on-screen as Valera’s hard-nosed sensei.
The
whole stoicism thing probably helps (no teary outbursts wanted or required),
but Antonio Banderas still gives one of his best performances since at least The Skin I Live In (another revenge
drama) and maybe going all the way back to Philadelphia.
We definitely believe he is deeply wounded and extremely ticked off. He also
shows some convincing moves in the fight scenes. That is all to the good,
because Banderas is on screen nearly every second. Still, even in limited
screen time, Robert Forster leaves his mark as Valera’s slightly disappointed
father-in-law.
Viewers
like us may well be of two minds with respect to the film’s ironic twist, but
there is no denying its grit. Florentine does this kind of film better than
anyone and he brought out Banderas’s A-game. It is also pretty darn literate
for the genre. Acts of Vengeance is
definitely worth seeing eventually, but whether you should wait for VOD or
catch it in theaters depends on how enthusiastic you are about Banderas or
Florentine and action payback cinema. It opens tomorrow (10/27) in New York, at
the Village East.
