REVIEW: The Cold Light of Day

MOVIE
The Cold Light of Day

CAST
Henry Cavill, Sigourney Weaver

RATING
PG-13

RELEASE
September 7, 2012

DIRECTOR
Mabrouk El Mechri

STUDIO
Summit Entertainment

RUNNING TIME
1 hour 33 minutes







STARS
*1/2







REVIEW:

Say hello to a really pointless action thriller.  It's name is 'The Cold Light of Day,' and the reason why you've probably never heard of it is that it was supposed to come out back in April before getting delayed to September for some reason.  Summit Entertainment, the studio behind this film, has made no attempt to market this movie with anything other than a trailer released in late January for the alleged April release.  It's not much of a surprise after seeing the film that Summit, now owned by Lionsgate, wants to shove this into a limited release and forget this ever existed, because this film isn't good by any means.  In fact, this movie is pretty horrible.  This is the type of movie that would be on some TV channel and one would watch it to fall asleep to.  There's nothing original to this movie at all.  Nothing is brought to the table.  Sure it could keep the viewer's attention throughout, but that's beside the point.  'The Cold Light of Day' is a sloppy, generic, and bland action film that nobody will even remember when the year comes to an end.

Will hasn't seen his family in a long time, so when the time comes for him to be with his family for the first time in years, he's pre-occupied with his work instead.  He goes to shore to get his phone replaced after an accident with his father, along with other necessities for his family.  When he returns, everyone is gone from the boat.  Will goes to tell the police about his supposedly kidnapped family when he's attacked by people who know his father.  Will's father then comes for the rescue and explains to Will that he's an undercover agent who's been targeted for a job he did a while back.  Will now has to inherit his father's CIA routes and attempt to save his family from terrorists.

If Henry Cavill was trying to make a name for himself before he became Superman in next year's 'Man of Steel,' then this was probably not the best choice for him.  His acting is pretty atrocious at times, and it seemed as if he was trying to force his emotions out in certain scenes.  Having heard from others that Cavill's not that bad of an actor, I assume it was more of the director's fault for his mediocre performance.  Sigourney Weaver is here just playing the typical action film villain, and she's ok.  She's not awful in the movie, but she could have been a lot better.  Bruce Willis can't even be critiqued because his role in the movie is more of a big cameo so to speak.  Let's just say that the writers of the movie decided to get rid of Willis' character pretty quickly, which is odd considering how big of a star he is.  I guess he was good for the time he was in the movie, but he didn't give a standout performance by any means.  The actors really can't be blamed for the quality of the movie.  Rather, the fault is more in the hands of the film's screenwriters.

To say this is a well written movie is like saying that pigs can fly.  The script is not only sloppy, but was also really predictable and unoriginal.  The transitions between certain things are both abrupt and jaw-dropping.  There was one little twist in the movie that I did like because it was something different, but that was the only thing that made this movie stand out against other generic action movies.  The three (yes, three) writers on this movie all had different ideas on how to make this a different action movie.  Unfortunately their ideas all crashed into each other and made the movie incredibly generic with one interesting twist.  If this had been a better script, then chances are this would have been a better movie.  A much better movie if more effort was put into it.

'The Cold Light of Day' will most likely be forgotten by the end of the year, but that's the way it should be.  The acting is disappointing to a fault, especially from the big name actors like Bruce Willis and Sigourney Weaver.  The direction is pretty bad as well.  The director of this movie shouldn't be blamed for this, because the fault was mostly from the screenplay.  The screenplay is sloppy, poorly written, and choppy at times.  It's no shock that Summit wanted to get this into theaters as quickly as possible.  It's highly doubtful that this is gonna make money due to the lack of marketing that was put into the movie.  This film will most likely find a home on a late night movie channel, but that's really where its only audience is.  'The Cold Light of Day' didn't need to be made, but alas it was.  Too bad it was a piece of trash.