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.
