Vigilante Diaries

Director Christopher Sesma has been cranking out direct to streaming action films. Co-writing this film with star Paul Sloan, the twosome got this story started as a web series and got seven episodes onto USA before it got canceled. The Vigilante has been captured and a black ops team with Wolfman (Quinton "Rampage" Jackson) and Tex-Mex (Chavo Guerrero Jr.) as members has to rescue him. And then there's a rescue of The Vigilante's pregnant wife. And Jason Mewes is a filmmaker who got the world interested in The Vigilante. And then Armenian mobsters start shooting up the place. And then there are bombs all over the city. And then there's the threat of Barrington (Michael Jai White) and Moreau (Michael Madsen). And hey - there's Danny Trejo tending a bar straight out of Accident Man or Deadpool. This movie feels like I got dropped into the fifth sequel and have no idea who anyone is but everyone else does. It also feels like a comic book adaptation for a book that has never been published and somehow we're supposed to know who everyone is. That said, I want to like this more than I did. I have a soft spot for it. Maybe you will too.

The good: Madsen, Russo, Trejo and White shine despite questionable dialogue. Rampage and Chavo show more potential than most of the other secondary players. Most of the women made the scenery look better. The bad: Mews comes off like Jay without Silent Bob. The lead actor is completely out starred. The ugly: Barry, the comic relief, falls flat. I don't mind stories that are told out of sequence, however, the editing on this film is horrendous.

Vigilante Diaries sells itself as the best of every male 25 demographic film your saw in the multiplex last decade and the results are muddled. The closest opposite number to Vigilante Diaries is of course Smoking Aces with it's very, very 2000's approach to screenwriting, blending archetypes and stereotypes seamlessly in an attempt to create plug in and play characters needing as little maintenance as possible from it's cast. Obnoxious would be an adjective, so would be, rectangular and, veggietastic. I'm flippant, but, that's because I don't know if the film itself is being likewise towards the viewer. This kind of graphic novel film-making is hard to sum up in a few words and that's why i hate to review them. Cause since the pace of the narrative is so irregular, it's easy to lose track of where we are and why we should care. The latter being difficult enough with the cast either being devoid of charm or sleepwalking their way to a paycheck. From what I could gather, Vigilante Diaries is the worst film for me, a Tarantino light smugfest that has given no reason for the audience to care. The film has put it's money where it's mouth is and the production values are impressive. Shooting over three continents, a direct to DVD star studded cast and even some decent action sequences. But the story is simply not there. The characters are all try hard 90's throwbacks with little depth and lesser sexy appeal. Combine this with a bloated running time due to some terrible comedy vignettes and Vigilante Diaries truly becomes a slog to get through. Personally, this style over substance really grates on me, but that is not a negative on the film's part. It's good that a film on the level of Vigilante Diaries is trying to be ambitious, but for some reason the writing really grated on me. It combined all the elements I hate about genre film-making, the cliches, the arbitrary meta, the non linear narrative. I just zoned out. Screw this movie.

The good things: Does not look cheap. Looks beautiful. Effects are great. Bad: Keep in mind, I own the dvd. Am writing this after my third or 4th viewing. By now, I know what im getting into. Too drawn out. But possibly still entertaining...but also possible to lose interet. I gave a 7 star because, of the sheer dedication. Soo many locations, costumes, and it NEVER looks cheap or filmed cheap. The props are all great. But kind of funny how many characters there are. There is a prologue, a literary device with the story being told in a bar, then another character does the narrating. There are flashbacks, and even Danny Trejo shows us for 1 scene at the end. I don't understand how this got made. The script must have sounded crazy, super complicated. But must have has good funding.

Acting? Bad. Writing? Bad. Directing? Bad. This movie is so cheesy Michael Madsen and Eric Roberts were fighting over who would get a role.

First of all, I can easily say that I have wasted 1hour and 47 minutes of my time to watch this movie.The scenario is completely a mess.It couldn't reveal each character's motivation for what they do. There wasn't any introduction to the characters so I didn't know who even is that black business man. What was the relation between Andreas and that black guy? Moreover, Andreas was an unbelievable character he had power, money and... but he still wasn't right in the head.The process of shaping characters and giving them personalities in this scenario is awful and incomplete the author really hasn't worked on it.The story was ambiguous didn't have any scheduled or planned plot. A scenario must have an introduction, Peak, and an ending.The visual effects were so weak and unprofessional it was really unrealistic the guy was just moving his hands in the air. They couldn't make it touchable for the audience it was like a low graphic game with terrible visual effects. It's better to attend more time to the process of making a movie than just making it anyway without working deeply on details.There wasn't any convincing reason for why Vigilante has turned to a hit-man. Who was the man who contacted him? Yup no idea, no information is given. They have just added characters without considering the details and working deeply on them. And the ending I can easily say that they had no idea how to end it, yes the writer's team was blocked then the ridiculous bombing idea came to their mind.I assume that its OK but where is the motivation for doing such cruel thing? You see? nothing they just wanted to finish the movie anyway.

Some former Special Forces guy decides to become a vigilante together with his tiny sidekick The Kid. He's recruited for this by some shady character named Moreau. For some reason some net video guy decides to follow the vigilante around and put the videos online. That makes the vigilante a hero. During some mission he goes against the Armenian mob killing the little brother of the big bad Armenian mobster. That gets the videographer kidnapped and eventually they find the Vigilante as well and torture him. The Kid assembles a new team to rescue the vigilante, who now travels all the way to Armenia to get the bad guy who has his girl and daughter kidnapped. But there's another really bad guy around, Barrington, who's up to no good and who has remained untouched so far. And eventually the Vigilante will have to confront him. The Vigilante's handler Moreau also will turn out to be trouble. The Vigilante Diaries I guess is supposed to be made to look like a comic. I don't read comics so to me that format doesn't do much. In my summary I'm tried to go chronologically. The movie doesn't. It is all over the place and I don't think it helped the movie much. Aside from that, the movie is a very ambitious R-rated B-action thriller with some humor as well. It is well-directed, well acted for the most part. And it also offers something unique in terms of the storyline set and filmed in Armenia. There's a lot to like here and I think this movie is recommendable and worth watching, but no, it's not an A-list blockbuster, but for the budget it comes pretty close and does offer plenty of entertainment.

Most actors feel like they are from cheap TV-shows. The bad guy must be telenovela actor. The script feels like it was written with mad- lips using action movie clichés. Movie is a messy mix-up of elements stolen form well-known action movie. Mostly from Deadpool, like lead actor narrating the story and fourth-wall breaks. Plot of all over the place and bad director makes this movie too both way too stupid for adults to watch sober and too hard to follow stoned or drunk. So I guess the target audience are male tween. None of the characters are neither believable, interesting or funny. Movie is not funny enough to be bad-funny movie. While this is not totally bad movie, it's not any way good either. Current rating of 5 is too high, this does not deserve rating above low 4. You can't really "watch" this movie without at same time surfing on the internet looking for something interesting to pass the time.

I had been looking somewhat forward to the Vigilante Diaries after reading some interviews with the writer and star Paul Sloan. His enthusiasm for the movie had me intrigued. The first thing that stands out from the movie is the excellent technical quality of the film. The production values of the movie definitely make Vigilante Diaries stick out from the DTV crowd. The bullet and blood effects are, although digital, done well and give the action a bloody, gritty feel. The film is also shot in a number of location's, which is not usually seen in a DTV action movie. They travel to Russia, Glasgow, London and others. I ma assuming that Sloan and Sesma done this with their own money, to give the film an international feel. Unfortunately a lot of these scenes are not required and drag the film out. Although it was nice to see places like Glasgow in an American action movie It seems they were used just because the actor/director had the opportunity to visit these places. Sloan as the Vigilante of the title, equips himself well as the lead. I don't think he will ever be a leading man, but is great at action, and I will look at the rest of his career with interest. Michael Jai White also shows up in a limited role, but does get a chance to show off some moves. Rampage Jackson is also good, in what is actually quite a humorous role. Of the leads, the only bum note is Jason Mewes, who is cringe worthy in some scenes, and wouldn't have been missed if he was cut from the film altogether. As mentioned before, Director Sesma does a great job with the technical aspects of the film, and the action scenes are great. Unfortunately the film should have been edited down. Although the movie only runs to 105 minutes, it feels much longer due to some unneeded scenes. I feel bad complaining about a DTV movie being over ambitious considering some of the garbage that currently floods the market. At least I can say that it is miles better than some of the recent Steven Segal films and their like. I would definitely recommend Vigilante Diaries to action fans, and would have given it a higher score if it wasn't for a few elements which bring it down a bit. Hopefully with Sesma's next film he will get everything right.

First half of the movie was pretty straight forward b-action that worked pretty well, but then the second half just inexplicably decides to jump forwards in time one month, just in the middle of a crucial point for a couple of the leadcharacters. And Michael Madsen without spoiling anything (I couldn't spoil it even if I wanted to as it's never explained) simply disappears from the movie, like literally he goes from being an important figure who just did something crucial for the plot to just never be seen again. That's not really true he actually does show up in the last 5 minutes together with a person who died 10 minutes prior to that, so clearly that was a scene that was in actuality meant to be shown a lot earlier but I guess the editors thought that no one would notice and it somehow would make sense. My only guess is that Madsen was problematic on set and he was fired or simply didn't show up anymore so that they had to put another character to take over where Madsen left off. And to be fair his performance suggests that he was barely trying to act. Jason Mewes also randomly disappears in a crucial moment in the first half. So yeah it was just all really weirdly put together, it's a shame because the movie had potential and it has a lot of entertaining standalone scenes and some entertaining characters (Rampage and Mewes most notably) but as a whole it doesn't make an iota of sense.