Bad Ass 2012

They messed with the wrong senior citizen.

5.8 / 10   383 vote(s)
R
Action Drama

Decorated Vietnam hero, Frank Vega returns home only to get shunned by society leaving him without a job or his high school sweetheart. It's not until forty years later when an incident on a commuter bus makes him a local hero where he's suddenly celebrated once again. But his good fortune suddenly turns for the worse when his best friend is murdered and the police aren't doing anything about it.

Release Date 2012-04-12
Runtime 1h 30m
Directors John Barr, Brian McQuery, Craig Moss, Mikal Kartvedt, Jeff Weiss
Producers Ash R. Shah, Jim Busfield, Ben Feingold
Writers Craig Moss, Elliot Tishman

This is an okay (barely) popcorn flick. The basic concept is a good one for this kind of movie. At least I like that type of plot. The initial part must have been done in hundreds of movies. Our hero goes away to war, Vietnam in this case, and when he comes home his girlfriend have a husband and kids.

The rest of the movie revolves around Frank being a bad ass that clobbers most of the undesirable elements that crosses his path. Naturally a new lady turns up in the neighbourhood to add some romance to the movie. Of course this new lady have an abusive punk for husband so…clobbertime.

The main plot element is the fact that Frank’s best friend is murdered and the police are slow to do something about it. So Frank goes about doing a bit of investigating himself. Of course most of the investigation ends up one way or another in some…clobbertime.

Not very surprising Frank does indeed find the bad guy at the end and in true American (Hollywood) manner a crocked mayor turn up under one of the rocks that gets overturned. Finding the bad guy do, surprise, surprise end up in some more…clobbertime.

That is pretty much the movie. A rather long knucklefeast loosely tied together with a passable (barely) script. Frank’s “investigation” is more poking around and either instigating or simply ending up in various brawls. If your popcorn munching should be loud enough to disturb the dialogue, well it is not a big deal really. You’re not missing much.

At the end of the movie it becomes exceptionally silly and unintelligent. Bleeding, visibly pissed off black guy walks up to bus and demands to be let in and the bus driver just opens the door. Yeah right. Then a Mexican guy follows and the next bus driver just gives him the keys. Come on!

Nevertheless, as a popcorn flick it was an okay movie with some laughs and some good macho fist-fights.

Per Gunnar Jonsson