Bent, 2018
Undercover police detective Danny (Karl Urban) is set to bust a major player, but the night goes very wrong and Danny's partner is killed. The drug dealer is killed, but successfully claims that Danny and his partner are crooked cops. After a stint in prison, Danny begins working a car bombing that he believes is connected to the drug dealer. Along the way he gets advice from his mentor (Andy Garcia) and gets tangled up with a sexy but deadly government agent named Shannon (Sofia Vargara).
This is basic (and I do mean) basic stuff, slightly elevated with a much better cast than the material deserves and decent direction.
In the lead role, Urban leans on his easy, weary charisma. This is the kind of character who seems to give the same heavy sigh whether someone's trying to assassinate him or a beautiful woman is giving him come-hither eyes. Urban is always easy to watch, but I wouldn't call this his A-game. Likewise, Garcia and Vergara have their own magnetism, but they aren't given a ton to work with. Garcia probably comes out looking the best, but there's just nothing new or original here for the actors to really work with.
The story itself is so-so. Danny begins with what looks like a small-time case (well, as much as a car bomb can be small time), but soon stumbles his way into a bigger conspiracy. The plot walks a line between complex and convoluted, but the biggest issue is simply a lack of stakes. We are introduced to several players, but they all remain very one-dimensional.
Ultimately, though, this is a film that drowns in cliches. Danny is harassed by the local police. In one scene, they pull him over and say he has a busted taillight---want to guess what happens next? It's all stuff we've seen a million times. This is also a film where there are only 5 female characters with more than two lines: Danny sleeps with three of them, one of them asks Danny to sleep with her, one his his mentor's wife. Perhaps because Vargara didn't want to do nudity, the film seems like it's making up for something to the point that it's absurd. Scenes in strip clubs, Danny inexplicably walking into an art class where, you guessed it, we get a nice long look at a nude female model. The fact that Urban remains chastely covered the whole time only adds to how silly it all seems. On top of all of that, none of it is the least bit sexy, and the look on Urban's face in these scenes mainly suggests that sleeping with a parade of beautiful women is just a huge headache. Poor guy.
This is by no means a horrible film. It's
fine. Urban, Garcia, and Vargara make it watchable. But nothing that happens in the entire 90 minute runtime will surprise you.