Tuesday, October 29, 2019

10 Minutes Gone: Bruce Willis & Michael Chiklis Go Head-to-Head


There is a lot of baldness in this caper, but maybe that makes sense. There will definitely be less chance of leaving behind follicle evidence that way. The job still goes down spectacularly badly, resulting in the death of Frank Sullivan’s brother. Bruce Willis and Michael Chiklis star in Brian A. Miller’s 10 Minutes Gone, which releases today on DVD.

Everything was going smooth as silk with the bank vault job Sullivan was hired to pull, until suddenly it wasn’t. The cops just showed up out of nowhere. However, it was probably one of Sullivan’s own guys who cold-cocked him and killed his brother. Rather curious to find out who it was, Sullivan stalks each one of them, so they can have words. Meanwhile, Rex, the contractor who hired the heist specialist wants to have his own words with Sullivan. His client paid to recover a package from the safety boxes. Sullivan and his brother briefly had it, but now it is presumably in the killer’s possession.

10 Minutes starts off pretty promising, but it turns out to be way too simplistic. Frankly, it is painfully obvious who the snake in the grass is, just because the cast of characters is so small. It is also hard to buy Chiklis in his action scenes, because he is such a big target and way too slow. On the other hand, it is amusing to watch Willis chew the scenery as the snarky big boss. He and Texas Battle are more interesting arguing with each other as contractor and client than Chiklis bickering with Meadow Williams playing his brother’s girlfriend, whom he has promised to keep safe.


Willis is indeed surprisingly fun to watch in this kind of almost-straight-to-DVD thriller, which Miller seems to understand, having directed him in three previous features (including Vice). Still, this is a minor film, even compared to their other movies. 10 Minutes is just shy of 90 minutes and it is conspicuously padded, with the same shootout footage replaying at least three times as part of various characters’ flashbacks.

Miller can stage a decent shootout and Willis also does his thing, but there is not much else to this film. We’ve seen worse, but we’ve also seen a whole lot better. Mildly diverting (for what that’s worth), 10 Minutes Gone releases today (10/29) on DVD.