Precious Cargo

Contrary to other reviewers I couldn't stop watching this film once I started. A real gem. Really enjoyed the character developement over the course of the film and all the hollywood formulas and cliches carried out so beautifully straight up and in the best of humour. Has the makings of a cult film. I was left so uplifted and wishing I could watch a sequel.

Writer & director Max Adams' profanity-laden, formulaic action fodder about double-crosses and shoot'em ups is snappy enough nonsense to be interesting and some of its dialogue is amusing. Once again Bruce Willis takes top billing as the urbane villain named Eddie in this fast-paced, sometimes surprising, but often straightforward thriller. One of the good guys uses spark-plugs fired from a shotgun to penetrate the windows of an armored car truck. Mark-Paul Gosselaar of "Heist" makes a serviceable action hero named Jack, and Claire Forlani is the deceptive female who persuades Jack to help her get rid of Eddie. Jenna Kelly is a female sniper who keeps the bad guys from putting bullets into our rugged protagonist. "Precious Cargo" refers to the valuable jewels that our hero and heroine are after and that villainous Bruce wants. Max Adams displays a modicum of flair and knows how to keep the action moving ahead of the gun play. Daniel Bernhardt makes an excellent second-in-command villain named Simon who repeatedly tangles with Eddie and gets him a hard time. Lensed on location in Gulfport, Mississippi.

At the outset, you should be aware that I am not a huge fan of action films. However, I do enjoy a good and well made action film...such as "Die Hard". And, speaking of "Die Hard", Bruce Willis co-stars in this one...but in this case he is not the action hero but the crazy and mega-dangerous villain. As for Precious Cargo, it was exciting and was filled with explosions, gun fire and stunts...but not a whole lot else. When the film begins, Jack (Mark-Paul Gossalaar) is working a mission with his team. However, he is nearly killed in the process when his deal to supply weapons to some baddies runs amok. It seems that he and his friends are criminals...cheating other criminals. But now that this case is over, it's time to relax...but this break doesn't last long. This is because Jack's old evil girlfriend, Karen (Claire Forlani) arrives...right in the middle to Jack making sweet love to his new sweetie. Talk about awkward! So why has this evil succubus of a woman returned? Well, Jack doesn't have time to ask because before you know it, a group of nasty assassins arrive and blow the crap out of his home...and Jack and the two women barely escape and then proceed to have a long chase using speedboats. This boating sequence is rather reminiscent of some of the James Bond films, by the way. Soon after miraculously dispatching all the baddies chasing them, Jack learns that a maniac mobster, Eddie (Bruce Willis) is behind the attack. Eddie is trying to kill Karen as this conniving woman has cheated him and he's willing to let bygones be bygones...after he and his men kill her. Unfortunately for Jack, he just happens to be in the way. He's also an idiot and keeps falling for Karen's lies and manipulations. At this point in the film, I wasn't particularly disappointed in the movie. While the characters were all very one-dimensional and underdeveloped, the stunts were crazy exciting. However, soon the film started falling apart for me...just because the writing became insane. Having Jack and his gang of misfits decide to steal $500,000,000 worth of diamonds from the CIA was just idiotic. You can't just steal this much from the government this easily!! Plus, should the viewers be rooting for people who are thieves...and rooting against some other thieves?! Well, it certainly is confusing and the film just stopped making much sense. So was there much I liked about the film? As I already mentioned, the stunts were impressive. Additionally, Willis made for a very menacing villain...and I liked seeing him in this sort of role. I also liked seeing the nice Mississippi coast location shoot. Otherwise, I thought the film could have used less stunts and more in the way of hashing out its characters and plot. For the person who loves action, action, action, this isn't a bad film. For anyone wanting more from a movie, you could easily find better.

Kelly need a lot of voice coaching, mostly to slow down, because she doesn't carry off 'thoughtful' well enough for the part. (Common Canadian acting problems - bovine energy) Kelly and Hull roles would have been better reversed. Willis hasn't brought energy to a role in years, and you see it in his private life as well. He needs the humor and edge to carry off the seriousness and he's settled into this retired state of mind that's projected dead on the screen. Forliani does her job well and she continues to carry the screen. Never thought she'd keep getting better. Pacing is wrong. Director should have slowed them all down. It's noir dialog filmed at summer blockbuster pace.

Review: After an impressive beginning, and some flash opening credits, this movie was a right let down. The acting was pretty poor from Mark-Paul Gosselaar (Jack) and Claire Forlani (Karen), and the script was poorly written. Bruce Willis (Eddie) seemed a bit out of place through the whole film, and the action scenes were far fetched and way over the top. There were some humorous scenes, which made the film slightly watchable but the storyline is predictable and Jack, who looked and acted just like Chris Pratt, became annoying after a while. Although the film had a reasonable budget, it still seemed cheap, even though there is loads of explosions and gun action. I wasn't that disappointed, because Bruce Willis hasn't starred in a decent movie for ages, and he has been making a lot of "straight to DVD" movies lately, for the independent market. I did like the chemistry between Jack and his handy sidekick Logan (Jenna B. Kelly) and Daniel Bernhardt (Simon) played a convincing baddie alongside Willis but apart from that, it's just another average movie, that will be quickly forgotten. Average! Round-Up: This is the first movie directed by Max Adams, who also wrote this film, along with Extraction, which also starred Bruce Willis, and Heist, which starred Robert DeNiro but none of the movies were that good. Mark-Paul Gosselaar, 42, is mostly known for his appearances on TV, in series like Pitch, CSI, Truth Be Told and Franklin & Bash, which explains why I haven't seen, or heard of him before. As for the rest of the cast, I did like Claire Forlani in Meet Joe Black but her career didn't really take off. Bruce Willis has really hit rock bottom, with films like Extraction, Vice and this film, and with another Die Hard movie in development, called Die Hard: Year One, it really needs to be a decent movie for people to start taking him serious again, although his screen charisma is pretty unique. Anyway, this film was pretty bad but it's watchable, if you've got nothing better to do. Budget: $10.5million Worldwide Gross: N/A I recommend this movie to people who are into their action/crime/comedies, starring Mark- Paul Gosselaar, Bruce Willis, Claire Forlani, John Brotherton, Lydia Hull, Daniel Bernhardt and Ashley Kirk. 3/10

A few weeks have passed, and that of course means we get yet another movie from the sausage factory that is of schlock producers Randall Emmett and George Furla. This is yet another effort of theirs that stars Bruce Willis. Well, actually it's hard to say that he "stars" in this movie, because once again he appears in a movie where it's clear he knocked off his few scenes in just a couple or so days of shooting. It's just as well, because Willis gives yet another lazy performance that further shows he doesn't give much of a darn to his few remaining fans these days. Actually, Willis' sleepwalking comes across as Olivier compared to some of the other actors. It was hard to say who gives the worst performance in the movie, but ultimately I give the award to Jenna B. Kelly, who plays Logan. She doesn't seem to be trying at all to add emotion or any other signs of acting to her lines. In fairness to Kelly and the rest of the cast, they have to deal with a screenplay that is packed with gawd-awful lines of dialogue that even the best thespians would have difficult selling to an audience. What's worse is that some of these lines of dialogue are intended to be funny, and not only are they not funny, they seem to be mocking the audience who is watching this movie. As for the (limited) action, it's routine at best, and flat and uninteresting at its worst. You may be wondering if there is ANYTHING good to say about this movie. Well, some of the camera-work does impress at times - I wasn't expecting the sometimes elaborate moves by the camera for a straight to DVD movie such as this. Especially one that is bad in every other way you can think of.

For a low budget film it's not bad, it's not great but still it's not bad. It is your usual run of the mill cat and mouse chase where a job goes wrong and the bad guys hunt them down. Bruce Willis obviously is the bad guy and plays the role as a p****D off mobster well. As I started this review of with the words of low budget which cost just over 10 million to make which I'm guessing Bruce Willis is getting half of that so that left 5 million to make the film which shows with some average acting, the action scenes are like it's been made for the channel SYFY and some of the lines are just awful. But despite all the faults above the film is only 85 minutes long so it's not really going to take up your time if you want to watch it.

This is a very standard run of the mill action flick,were Bruce Willis probably have phoned in the job. The acting is fairly good considering it holds mostly low grade actors. Bruce is suppose to be the name that draws you in. Mark-Paul Gosselaar does a good job as action hero.He should've jumped on that train long ago. The biggest problem I have with this movie,is that they use the same old cliché stereotypes. With a women from the past getting her hooks in the hero, once he got something good going without her. And like a siren's call she gonna have her way,and he gonna follow her into deep water just to find out she isn't as truthfully as he thinks. Really Hollywood,can't you come up with a better recipe for an action flick? I would like to see some twist to that old tried and true plot.Kind a like the movie Thursday,were they have whole new twist to it. The movie isn't bad.It's is very average 90 min action movie.Could've needed a bit more meat on the bone,but if you got 90 min to kill this will do

Mark-Paul Gosselaar gets to show his action hero chops(I don't think he's been in a movie like this as the lead before). Bruce Willis making a habit of playing the bad guy in these, for the paycheck, Direct-to-Video movies that get limited theatrical releases because he's got second billing in it. Daniel Bernhardt was more worthy as Willis' formidable henchmen. It is just an action movie, plan and simple, about a cool truck heist. Some decent gun play and a few cool back and forth one-liners (nothing that will go down in history like yippee ka-yay),that are indeed fun for the moment. If you need to be entertained it gets the job done.

There should be a Rule. If an "Actor" appears on the Cover of a Video, He or She has to Appear in more than Five Minutes of Screen Time. Bruce Willis, in another Poster Paycheck Role might just make that cut in this Overly Slick DTV, but Barely. The other "Actors" in this Badly Written and Conceived Movie seem to be as Disinterested as Willis. Striking Goofy Tough Guy and Gal Poses Delivering Lame Lines and Trying to Look Pretty, makes this a Cringe Inducer and an Embarrassment to all concerned. It's one of those that's Played as Tongue-in-Cheek to make it all seem Forgivable Fun and the Bottom of the Barrell is the End Credits where it Presents Side-Bar Hilarity with Characters that didn't have Enough Charisma to warrant Caring about in the Previous 90 Minutes. It's Forgettable Gloss, Painted with Bright Colors, Little Suspense, and the Gun Battles and Chases are Ridiculous. Half of the Wasted Budget must have been Spent on Bullets coming from Guns Fired by People that are Firing Range Deficient. A Movie so Thin that can only be Tolerated by the Lowest-Common-Denominator Fan that asks nothing of a Film and that's Exactly what They Get with this one. Nothing. Bruce Willis has become a Deceiving Decadent Whore.