An average movie

For the first time around, Allen Hughes was coming up with a new directing effort without his brother Albert and even though it barely got noticed when it was released, I still wanted to check it out. To be honest, even though I really loved 'Menace II Society', nothing else the Hughes brothers have done afterwards really managed to impress me and this movie was another fine example. I mean, sure, it was watchable but the plot was just really generic and fairly predictable. To make it more complicated than it actually was, they threw so many names that I wasn't really able to remember exactly who was who after 10 minutes. At least, there was a decent cast involved (Mark Wahlberg, Russell Crowe, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Jeffrey Wright, Barry Pepper, Natalie Martinez, Kyle Chandler) and I was above all impressed by Russell Crowe who was completely convincing in this part. On the other hand, I wish I could say the same about Mark Wahlberg but it is exactly with this kind of movies that you can see how limited his acting range can be. I mean, the guy is charismatic, I'll give you that, but through the whole thing, I didn't see much mental struggle or emotion coming from this actor. Apparently, Michael Fassbender declined to play the lead but some strong actor like him would have really helped this flick . Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, I thought it was still a decent watch, even if it was completely forgettable

6/10