The story is simple – the onus lies on Walker, on the payroll of a real-estate Tycoon Lawrence (Forest Whitaker), to rescue Lawrence’s son Charlie (Justin Cornwell) and his partner-in-crime Mia (Quelin Sepulveda) from a local triad headed by “Mother” (Yeo Yann Yann) who in turn would go to any length in avenging the death of her son during a shootout. Essentially, the writing tries to add complexity in the plot through its blind character introductions without providing context of the proceedings, but if I were to sit and analyze – the writing was pretty much all of this. And instantly, a basic characterization issue was linked to Walker who was shown to be a depressed cop, but this trait didn’t necessarily add up to the main plot. I mean even if he was showcased to be a badass cop (which is also partly shown), the story would still have stayed the same. The little backstory of Walker and his family was less convincing, and had very little impact on the proceedings.

There is a steady buildup with respect to its characters that is spread between a high-octane chase sequence at the start, that literally sets the tone for the drama to follow. What that does is allow the viewers a sneak peak into the future (of the film), on the road that lies ahead. The motivations of a few characters are concealed while superseding the shock factor with respect to the gore more than focusing on the identities or the emotional core. And that isn’t always a bad thing. The emotions are generally binary and broad-stroked, something that is communicated through the characters too. For instance, in a scene you see the character of “Mother” entering the fray and randomly shooting down three extras before inquiring about her son’s death with Ching (Sunny Pang). The core emotion is that of anger coupled with a quest for revenge.

The initial buildup later makes way for some remarkable action set-pieces on offer. This incidently also coincides with the motivations of characters getting clearer by the minute, while also teasing the viewers about the identity of the actual culprits. Keeping that in mind, the nightclub massacre sequence has got to be one of the highlights of the film. The stage is set with all stakeholders landing up at a single location that results in a mass brawl. The ‘extras’ are pumped with multiple rounds of lead, limbs and body parts are chopped off, and blood and gore finally find their voices in a major way in that sequence. I liked how the rhythm of the scene began to increase its pacing after every minute, and so did the intensity that resulted in complete mayhem. Perhaps, one way of hiding the identity of the ‘extras’ was to use marks like in the Hindi film Animal (2023), but the sequence still makes a splash.

A similar sequence plays out in the final act as well, with bodies being pumped with bullets and blood richocheting on the face even while the adrenaline levels remain high. The final act is essentially divided into two parts – with mayhem spaced between a meeting between all stakeholders. In the first half, extras are bloodied, killed, smashed, abused and sent straight to hell. And in the second half, more of the same transpires although my general consensus remained on how contrieved the events were, something that could have been fleshed out. But largely, the action set-piece was straight out of a video-game on easy mode – and who was even complaining. The interesting bit remained the intertwining dynamics between Lawrence and “Mother” – two very similar characters that faced similar issues with respect to their child who had been neglecting them (until one died), and largely both characters met with a similar fate as well. For me, this remained a lone spark from the emotional core of the film that otherwise was devoid of any emotions. And that for me summed up the screenplay too that had tremendous action but very little of everything else after a point. Still, the action ensures that the film is fun and largely watchable.