Blowing $4.99 on a shitty movie rental used to be a petty annoyance. Five bucks and two hours of your time once were meaningless if you didn't have control over what you were sold. Nowadays, streaming services offering you an endless stream of movies put a lot of pressure on the viewer because it's now your fault if you fuck up. It's also a lot of pressure on filmmakers because streaming services make you expendable. So, how in the hell anybody could think it was a good idea to shoot Homefront is beyond me, but it was made and three years later I have watched it so you never have to.
Undercover DEA agent Phil Broker (Jason Statham) nails an important network of biker gang-affiliated meth distribution and the son of leader Danny T. (the immortal Chuck Zito) gets killed by the police during the bust. Later, Broker and his daughter Maddy (Izabela Vidovic) are laying low in a quiet nearby town when a beef emerges between the federal agent and white trash parents over Maddy beating up their mentally deficient bully of a kid (I'm not even kidding). Turns out that the mother's brother (the über-immortal James Franco) is a meth cook working for none other than Danny T. What a coincidence!
It's not even the best part. Gator (James Franco's character's stupid name) learns Broker's identity by breaking up inside his house and FINDING INCRIMINATING DOCUMENTS REVEALING HIS IDENTITY AND THE PART HE PLAYED IN THE BUST. It's as stupid as it sounds.
Now, Homefront was written by my boy Sylvester Stallone. It doesn't excuse this aberration of a movie. It defies the very logic of narrative fiction: how am I supposed to empathize with your fucking protagonist if he's a dumb dirtbag who rather remind himself of how badass he is than keep his daughter safe? I understand probably nobody has told ol' Sly the magic word "no" since his porn days, but that screenplay could've used some workshopping before getting filmed. I don't often dwell on the merits of writing workshops, but when I do, it's because characters break into each other's houses looking for God knows what because of schoolyard beefs.
When it first came out, I thought Homefront was based on the video game of the same name and that the ineluctable Jason Statham was chasing off Korean people from his front porch. That's why it took me so long to get to it. Truth is, it's a much stranger film than that. It's a film that entertains the illusion of moral duality in America. The righteous moral Americans are pitted against the soulless, animalistic drug dealers/addicts (embodied by a neurotic, but efficient Kate Bosworth) in a fight for the promised land of our forefathers. The concept is straight out of the 1970s. It's not something I would've minded if the movie took itself a little less seriously, but hey. Apparently meth cooks and bikers are the new scourge of America, because righteous, God-fearing people have to be victims of something.
Everybody can make mistakes and in the big picture, Homefront is not going to be a factor in Sylvester Stallone's legacy. The movie has little redeeming value though. The protagonist is hard to love because he is a danger to himself and everybody he loves. The plot is not convincing at all as the source of everybody's problem could be easily avoided by rational adults. It's not even very stylish. There are a couple strong action scenes, but overall Homefront can only be enjoyed ironically. If you want to watch a bad movie and have a couple laughs with friends, it's an interesting option. Otherwise, you could spend your entire tenure on Earth without having to put yourself through it, especially if you're a Sylvester Stallone fan.
Somewhere in America, there is a random criminal wanting to shoot you down with an automatic weapon for daring to do the right thing.
When it first came out, I thought Homefront was based on the video game of the same name and that the ineluctable Jason Statham was chasing off Korean people from his front porch. That's why it took me so long to get to it. Truth is, it's a much stranger film than that. It's a film that entertains the illusion of moral duality in America. The righteous moral Americans are pitted against the soulless, animalistic drug dealers/addicts (embodied by a neurotic, but efficient Kate Bosworth) in a fight for the promised land of our forefathers. The concept is straight out of the 1970s. It's not something I would've minded if the movie took itself a little less seriously, but hey. Apparently meth cooks and bikers are the new scourge of America, because righteous, God-fearing people have to be victims of something.
Everybody can make mistakes and in the big picture, Homefront is not going to be a factor in Sylvester Stallone's legacy. The movie has little redeeming value though. The protagonist is hard to love because he is a danger to himself and everybody he loves. The plot is not convincing at all as the source of everybody's problem could be easily avoided by rational adults. It's not even very stylish. There are a couple strong action scenes, but overall Homefront can only be enjoyed ironically. If you want to watch a bad movie and have a couple laughs with friends, it's an interesting option. Otherwise, you could spend your entire tenure on Earth without having to put yourself through it, especially if you're a Sylvester Stallone fan.