Nostalgia Fuels Stallone through BULLET TO THE HEAD

Welcome to 2013, a year filled with old school shoot’em-ups starring geriatric Action Icons from the past. The pace of these releases is nearly bi-weekly. First we had Arnold’s return to form in “The Last Stand” which will soon be followed by Bruce’s 5^th outing as John McClane in “A Good Day to Die Hard” on February 14^th. I can’t wait to see what Steven Segal has in store for us. Whatever it is, I hope it’s called “Hard to Kick” because I’m sure he can barely get that leg higher than his waist any longer.

Now with the “Bullet to the Head,” Sylvester Stallone is back (again) and this time it’s personal (sorta). He has teamed up with director Walter Hill, another Icon from the Action Glory Days (“The Warriors,” “48 Hrs,” “Last Man Standing”) who hasn’t made a decent movie in decades. Together Hill and Stallone give us a movie that looks, sounds and feels like it came from another era. Corrupt cops, rock-hard hit men and gorgeous women who can’t seem to keep clothed populate this throwback that makes no excuses for its ridiculousness. The film could have easily been made in 1985, shot-for-shot and word-for-word, and been a legitimate example of the genre.

Now personally, as a 37 year-old who owns Stallone’s arm wrestling classic “Over the Top” on Blu-ray, nostalgia was enough to keep me entertained through most of “Bullet to the Head”. Fans of this sort of thing should not be disappointed. Sly plays James Bonomo (Bobo for short), a hit man with a conscience who will avenge his partner’s murder by placing many bullets into craniums out in the savage streets of beautiful New Orleans. He reluctantly pairs up with a cop (Sung Kang) who is investigating the murder of a crooked ex-police officer that was gunned down on the same night that James lost his partner to inconvenient knife holes to the chest.

Christian Slater plays an asshole attorney working for the bad guy. Jason Momoa (the revamped “Conan the Barbarian”) provides the proper scowl as Keegan, the modern day Drago, the main villain who provides a wonderful finale involving swinging axes. Women do not fare well as they are only portrayed as victims and eye-candy.

But is it too late for this sort of shenanigans? The fact that all of these Action films starring men edging on 70 years has brought a couple of things to light for me. First, we never replaced these guys and there is probably a good reason for that. You could make an argument for Jason Statham as the Last Action Hero we’ve had but his films have never been broadly beloved the way Rambo flicks were 30 years ago. Second, I don’t think these new films have much to offer but nostalgia. “The Last Stand” was a decent movie that stayed close to the template much like “Bullet to the Head” does. As the guns really got to blazing in the third act, it was hard not to realize how long it had been since I had seen a movie that relied so heavily on gunfire to replace any actual storytelling. I liked the film but it was my inner-eight year old that was clapping and bouncing for joy.  Considering that “The Last Stand” has bombed at the box office may illustrate that this sort of thing is outdated and the modern filmgoer, as fickle as he/she can be, actually will not swallow this as entertainment any longer.  Let’s see if Stallone can do any better.