Susan Granger’s review of “Homefront” (Open Road)
In this crime melodrama, the action begins immediately as onetime Interpol/DEA agent Phil Broker (Jason Statham), who has been working undercover, leads a raid on a Shreveport meth lab. The ringleader, Danny T (Chuck Zito), is arrested, but his son is shot, prompting him to warn Broker that retaliation will come. And you know it will, even though Broker resigns from the government agency.
Skip ahead two years when Broker, now a widower, is living in rural Rayville, Louisiana, with his 10 year-old daughter Maddy (Izabela Vidovic). Much to the concern of her teacher, Susan Hatch (Rachelle Lefevre), Maddy has become a very feisty kid, ever since her mother died. So it’s not surprising that when a fat kid bullies her in the schoolyard, Maddy punches him out. Despite an apology, the kid’s drug-addicted, menacing mother, Cassie (scary skinny Kate Bosworth), dispatches first her husband, Jimmy Klum (Marcus Hester), then her brazen, meth-peddling brother, Morgan “Gator” Bodine (James Franco), to exact revenge. So Broker must not only protect his daughter but also himself against sneering Gator and his skanky biker-turned-barmaid girlfriend, Sheryl Mott (Winona Ryder). And it ups the ante in the backwoods when Gator discovers Phil’s former profession and offers to reveal his location to imprisoned Danny T in exchange for participation in a statewide meth distribution network.
Based on a novel by Chuck Logan and adapted by Sylvester Stallone many years ago as a potential final chapter to his “Rambo” saga, it’s directed with serviceable intensity by Gary Fleder (“Runaway Jury”) – with an appreciative nod to stunt coordinator Brad Martin, who stages several uber-violent sequences.
Having firmly established himself as a stoic, no-nonsense antihero, Jason Statham is, once again, a gruff, rough, fearless protagonist who must face a battery of sleazy, ruthless antagonists. What’s disconcerting, however, is that for some bizarre reason, James Franco’s gonzo Gator seems, somehow, to have wandered in from “Spring Breakers.”
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10-, “Homefront” is a skull-cracking, stylistic 4 – a ferocious, profanity-filled revenge flick that should have gone direct-to-video.
