A Man Apart Review
by Jon Popick (jpopick AT sick-boy DOT com)April 5th, 2003
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There are, one would imagine, at least three or four people out there who have been anxiously awaiting an opportunity for actor Vin Diesel (XXX) to showcase his acting chops - you know, because he's, like, really talented and everything, and he's so much more than just brainless action movies. He's totally a thespian and stuff, and if you took away the cars and the explosions and the scantily clad women, and gave him the right script, he'd be way better than that Russell Crowe schmuck.
Keep dreaming, morons, because A Man Apart is still just another brainless action movie. It's also yet one more delayed Diesel project (Note to producers: There isn't shit you can do in the editing room to make this guy Olivier) that was shot over two years ago and has been languishing on the shelf while the filmmakers agonized over ways to make it less sucky. I'm not one to judge a film by its poster (though I can't say the same about books and covers), but you can tell the poor Vinster has a massive Excedrin headache about the whole thing.
Originally titled Diablo (the videogame makers of the same name sued to keep their product from being associated with crap), Apart begins with Diesel's DEA agent Sean Vetter carefully explaining, via voiceover, that the biggest drug-abusing country in the world is the US, and that our drugs are funneled primarily through Mexico. Really? Thanks for that. I had no idea that's how things worked. Here I was, certain that cocaine has been coming through Canada from Greenland.
In the first proper scene, Vetter and his crew take down a huge Mexican cartel and nab its kingpin, who they've been tracking for no less than seven years. We learn this particular group of the DEA is the most successful anti-narcotics crew in the country because they all grew up together on the streets. While they celebrate with a big party at Vetter's beach house, another cartel is tearing shit up down in Mexico, eager to establish themselves as the US's main supplier. A hit is put out on Vetter, but his wife Stacy (Jacqueline Obradors, NYPD Blue) is accidentally killed while Our Hero is only winged.
After an unintentionally funny hospital scene in which he gets all crazy when he finds out his wife has died, Vetter turns from a respectable, by-the-numbers officer to a rogue cop who drinks and smokes and doesn't take no guff from nobody (yeah!). He's hell-bent on finding out who killed Stacy and doesn't care who stands in his way (yeah!). Even when he gets a six-month suspension for turning a potential drug buy into one big (and super-confusing) bloodbath, Vetter never once thinks about anything but revenge (yeah!), except for those very special scenes where he gets all quiet and meditative. Who the hell wants to shell out money to see a pensive Diesel?
Like Diesel appears to be doing, Apart just gets slower and dumber. Most of it doesn't make a lick of sense, like when Vetter makes repeated trips to the federal prison to get advice from the captured cartel head (Geno Silva), even though he's suspended. The best part is when Vetter and partner Demetrius Hicks (Larenz Tate, Biker Boyz) call on a drug-sniffing Chihuahua to root out the home of an area coke dealer in the seediest section of South Central Los Angeles. Because it was too hard for them to figure out his house was the one with the tricked-out sport cars parked on the front lawn, I guess.
The only breath of life in Apart is the all-too-brief performance of Timothy Olyphant (Dreamcatcher), who plays a slimy Beverly Hills salon owner and might have something to do with the new, super-violent Diablo cartel. Diesel, meanwhile, displays the acting range of ice. Actually, that may be unfair to ice, as it can do things like melt. Diesel can just stand there and flex. Another action bomb from music video director F. Gary Gray, who keeps pumping them out (Set It Off, The Negotiator) after fluking his way onto the big screen with Friday.
1:50 - R for strong graphic violence, language, drug content and sexuality
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