by Josh Sewell
I’ll say this about Vanquish, the godawful new crime thriller starring Morgan Freeman and Ruby Rose: it gives you plenty of warning about what you’re in for right from the start. The movie is just a hair over 90 minutes long, but the opening credits last nearly seven and they’re full of MS Paint-level newspaper clipping mockups telling viewers about the career of Freeman’s character. Strike one.
The first scene is Freeman’s character confessing dark deeds to a priest as a way to provide even more exposition to the audience. Strike two. Finally, every actor who isn’t Freeman sounds like they’re reading off cue cards (and a couple of them have that distracting, alien-like sheen that comes from really bad plastic surgery). Strike three.
Still, I made sure to give Vanquish the benefit of the doubt. I’ve seen plenty of movies that start shaky but find their footing. Sadly, not in this case. I hung in there the whole time, but purely out of professional courtesy.
Spoiler alert for my grade at the bottom: I’m pretty sure this is the first movie to earn an F in my 19 years as a film critic. I’ve given quite a few "gentleman's D-" grades, but that’s because I always try to find something positive to say to save them from absolute failure. I just can’t do that here.
The unoriginal premise (credited to writer-director George Gallo and co-writer Samuel Bartlett) doesn’t do the film any favors. Rose plays Victoria, a woman who left her life as a drug courier for the Russian mob in order to raise her daughter (Juju Journey Brener). She now works as a caretaker for Damon (Freeman), a wheelchair-bound retired cop. He knows that she’s struggling to pay her sick kid’s medical bills, so he makes her a deal.
It turns out Damon’s crooked and the feds are closing in, so he needs Victoria to pick up several bags of money from his associates before that happens. When she refuses, it goes from offer to ultimatum: do what he says, or she’ll never see her daughter again. With no alternative, Victoria must call on her old training to face down a bunch of violent gangsters and save her daughter.
No judgment here, but Freeman clearly cashed a giant paycheck in exchange for top billing and a few days of work. Gallo doesn’t even try to hide that fact considering almost all the actor’s scenes take place in the same room, many of them in close-up as one side of a conversation. He only appears in scenes with Rose and, very briefly, one other actor.
Speaking of Rose, she’s decent in the brief action sequences, which are few and far between. However, her line delivery is stilted and I never bought her as the mom of a preteen girl – she seems more like her babysitter. There’s a halfhearted attempt to give Victoria a John Wick-style backstory, perhaps as a wink to the fact that Rose was in that film’s sequel, but she isn’t compelling enough to make it plausible.
Any time the most famous actors aren’t onscreen, viewers are subjected to a subplot about dirty cops that kills what little narrative momentum there is. The amateurish acting only makes things worse, especially a stereotypical gay character that would’ve been shockingly offensive in the 1980s. He pops up out of nowhere to deliver a wooden, expositional monologue that ends with a lame cocaine bit lifted directly from Birds of Prey (where it was much funnier).
Although the acting is rough across the board in Vanquish, it’s far from the movie’s only problem. In addition to the comically long opening credits, the already-short running time is padded with tons of unnecessary repetition – there are flashbacks to scenes that literally just happened – so the movie can limp over the 90-minute mark.
Furthermore, Anastas N. Michos’ cinematography makes it look like a cheap television pilot. In his defense, however, I’m sure the budget didn’t give him much to work with. I’m guessing most of the money went to paying Freeman and Rose’s salaries.
While we’re on the subject of budget restrictions, it becomes clear as the narrative progresses that the opening credits’ laughably bad newspaper headlines aren’t the only horrendous visual effects. There’s amateurish CGI throughout, including a scene involving a police informant inexplicably shot from a rat’s point-of-view (subtle, right?) and a giant fake explosion that literally made me laugh out loud. I doubt that’s the reaction Gallo was going for.
The action sequences get boring after a while because car chases drag on for eternity (again, to pad the running time), yet Gallo obviously didn’t have enough money to splurge on crashes or stunts. Vehicles always slam on the brakes before they hit anything and there’s only minor cosmetic damage done to Victoria’s motorcycle.
Finally, everything wraps up with a muddled, abrupt ending that leaves several plot threads dangling. Not that I cared about getting closure – by then, I was just relieved the movie was over – but it felt like narrative laziness rather than leaving breadcrumbs for a possible sequel to follow.
As the last scene mercifully faded to black, I couldn’t help but think Vanquish was crafted as a tax shelter for the investors involved, rather than a creative endeavor, since there are more than a dozen production companies and “co-executive producer” credits on this thing. While those people might be happy with the results of their investment, there’s no reason audiences should be subjected to the finished product. Avoid it at all costs – it’s not even fun enough to be an entertaining train wreck.
Vanquish is rated R for bloody violence, language, some sexual material and drug use. Opens in select theaters April 16; available on Digital and On Demand April 20; and available on Blu-ray and DVD April 27.
Grade: F
The first scene is Freeman’s character confessing dark deeds to a priest as a way to provide even more exposition to the audience. Strike two. Finally, every actor who isn’t Freeman sounds like they’re reading off cue cards (and a couple of them have that distracting, alien-like sheen that comes from really bad plastic surgery). Strike three.
Still, I made sure to give Vanquish the benefit of the doubt. I’ve seen plenty of movies that start shaky but find their footing. Sadly, not in this case. I hung in there the whole time, but purely out of professional courtesy.
Spoiler alert for my grade at the bottom: I’m pretty sure this is the first movie to earn an F in my 19 years as a film critic. I’ve given quite a few "gentleman's D-" grades, but that’s because I always try to find something positive to say to save them from absolute failure. I just can’t do that here.
The unoriginal premise (credited to writer-director George Gallo and co-writer Samuel Bartlett) doesn’t do the film any favors. Rose plays Victoria, a woman who left her life as a drug courier for the Russian mob in order to raise her daughter (Juju Journey Brener). She now works as a caretaker for Damon (Freeman), a wheelchair-bound retired cop. He knows that she’s struggling to pay her sick kid’s medical bills, so he makes her a deal.
It turns out Damon’s crooked and the feds are closing in, so he needs Victoria to pick up several bags of money from his associates before that happens. When she refuses, it goes from offer to ultimatum: do what he says, or she’ll never see her daughter again. With no alternative, Victoria must call on her old training to face down a bunch of violent gangsters and save her daughter.
No judgment here, but Freeman clearly cashed a giant paycheck in exchange for top billing and a few days of work. Gallo doesn’t even try to hide that fact considering almost all the actor’s scenes take place in the same room, many of them in close-up as one side of a conversation. He only appears in scenes with Rose and, very briefly, one other actor.
Speaking of Rose, she’s decent in the brief action sequences, which are few and far between. However, her line delivery is stilted and I never bought her as the mom of a preteen girl – she seems more like her babysitter. There’s a halfhearted attempt to give Victoria a John Wick-style backstory, perhaps as a wink to the fact that Rose was in that film’s sequel, but she isn’t compelling enough to make it plausible.
Any time the most famous actors aren’t onscreen, viewers are subjected to a subplot about dirty cops that kills what little narrative momentum there is. The amateurish acting only makes things worse, especially a stereotypical gay character that would’ve been shockingly offensive in the 1980s. He pops up out of nowhere to deliver a wooden, expositional monologue that ends with a lame cocaine bit lifted directly from Birds of Prey (where it was much funnier).
Although the acting is rough across the board in Vanquish, it’s far from the movie’s only problem. In addition to the comically long opening credits, the already-short running time is padded with tons of unnecessary repetition – there are flashbacks to scenes that literally just happened – so the movie can limp over the 90-minute mark.
Furthermore, Anastas N. Michos’ cinematography makes it look like a cheap television pilot. In his defense, however, I’m sure the budget didn’t give him much to work with. I’m guessing most of the money went to paying Freeman and Rose’s salaries.
While we’re on the subject of budget restrictions, it becomes clear as the narrative progresses that the opening credits’ laughably bad newspaper headlines aren’t the only horrendous visual effects. There’s amateurish CGI throughout, including a scene involving a police informant inexplicably shot from a rat’s point-of-view (subtle, right?) and a giant fake explosion that literally made me laugh out loud. I doubt that’s the reaction Gallo was going for.
The action sequences get boring after a while because car chases drag on for eternity (again, to pad the running time), yet Gallo obviously didn’t have enough money to splurge on crashes or stunts. Vehicles always slam on the brakes before they hit anything and there’s only minor cosmetic damage done to Victoria’s motorcycle.
Finally, everything wraps up with a muddled, abrupt ending that leaves several plot threads dangling. Not that I cared about getting closure – by then, I was just relieved the movie was over – but it felt like narrative laziness rather than leaving breadcrumbs for a possible sequel to follow.
As the last scene mercifully faded to black, I couldn’t help but think Vanquish was crafted as a tax shelter for the investors involved, rather than a creative endeavor, since there are more than a dozen production companies and “co-executive producer” credits on this thing. While those people might be happy with the results of their investment, there’s no reason audiences should be subjected to the finished product. Avoid it at all costs – it’s not even fun enough to be an entertaining train wreck.
Vanquish is rated R for bloody violence, language, some sexual material and drug use. Opens in select theaters April 16; available on Digital and On Demand April 20; and available on Blu-ray and DVD April 27.
Grade: F
Reach out to Josh Sewell on Twitter @IAmJoshSewell
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