People are voting emotionally.

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

it is finally so absorbing because it plays like a lyrical road odyssey that’s also a detective story.

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

John "Falcon" Chapman is driven by guilt and suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.When Chapman's sister is brutally attacked while on assignment in Brazil, Chapman flies into Sao Paulo to track down her assailantsBut he quickly enters the city's seedy underbelly and discovers a world of drugs, the sex trade, corrupt cops, and organised crime syndicates battling for control.It's a comforting image, when you see a straight to video action star in a one sheet looking down and slightly angry, with a shirtless gangster holding a samurai sword. It's comforting because you know exactly what your going to get, a revenge film with lots of fights and a decent final boss fight.These films have been around since the mid-eighties, and it proves that people still love these films, even if they won't admit it, because they follow a narrative that is as old as time.Tortured soul, who drinks a lot, has a fight in a shop by people holding the place up, gets visited by his sister, she gets hurt, he wants revenge, and there are lots of wonderfully choreographed fight sequences.And if you hadn't guessed that those cops are corrupt the minute they appear on screen, you haven't seen enough of these films.It's nothing new, it doesn't attempt to be anything that it isn't, and it's all the better for it.

I am not going to label myself as a fan of anybody because I honestly don't know anyone in the movie except for Neal McDonough and one look at him and you know he is going to play some sort of CIA guy or ambassador guy or one of those office pencil pushers who is secretly a super agent. Movie starts off on a dark note and I can understand how and why they chose to begin that way but the rest of the movie was so twice removed from the intro that you begin to wonder why even include it in the first place?!Story was highly predictable. Some corrupt cops, some bad guys, some other bad guys who are just thugs and then some super bad guys. One of the biggest issues I had with this movie is that fights looked very believable but the rest of the movie did not. You could practically recite every single line for every single person in the movie if you had it on mute. I thought it was a poor choice of decision to make this movie anglo-latino bilingual. Make Latin culture communicate in their native tongue, none of this cross bridging nonsense. Naturally they did not film in Brazil so it was very obvious by location shoot, accents, languages used and more. If you can generally survive predictable dialogue and somewhat of a predictable story line and poor acting and highly predictable characters... this movie is a decent watch while waiting for something more substantial to arrive in a netflix queue. One of the biggest problems with this movie is that it could have been ohh so much more. Instead we have an unstoppable machine that was a little too powerful for the movie itself. If you remember a movie like Elite Squad and Elite Squad Enemy Within... that gets you a general ballpark of quality of movies that could have come out of this whole thing. Even on a low budget it is possible to produce such an amazing movie like Juan of the dead or Una Noche (granted I felt this movie had a lot of flaws but at the very least quality of film stood out). One of the biggest issues of shoving a big brute into a movie and not giving him appropriate competition is that he or she will inevitably turn into Steven Segal that pretty much plows through anything and anyone and you quickly lose interest. You need to have right opponents and this movie, honestly, did not deliver that. Even in closing scenes there was no sitting on the edge of your seat.The story of a veteran is a story that was re-told about a zillion times. The face of a Neal is telling enough to let you know that there will be politics and corruption involved. The cheesy detectives let you know what the movie is about as soon as camera pans to them. I gave this movie a 4 and I honestly think it could get a 6 if it tried a little harder.

Wonderful movie. Why Hollywood does not use Micheal jai white more is beyond me. His fighting is beyond excellent. No stunt doubles. No cgi. Just above the rest kick assery. He is one of the best fighting actors ever. He is so under used. Yes, his acting isn't Oscar material, but he plays his parts well. You can really feel his characters emotions. He owns ever action scene he's in. This movie wasn't all action. It had a good story. There was good pacing. Of COURSE he is easy on the eyes to on which helps. You look forward to every scene he's in. The plot line moves along nicely. The shooting location was great. Rio was a great background to the movie. If you like White's other movies, you will like this movie.

Great balance of humor, fight scenes and story. Its got a good plot that keeps it interesting, not overly complicated but better than your average sister/friend/wife gets beaten or killed then uncontrollable rampage, there's a little more going on. There's a few twists in the plot some easier to spot than others but for an action film its does the job perfectly. The acting is good, a little dry in places more so from the other characters, Michael Jai White plays his part really well and has some great throw away lines. There's some good choreography and use of weapons and different styles of fighting, plus its not ill take on an army with guns using just kung fu, the fights adapt as the need arises. Will be recommending this to some friends and probably watching it again.All in all fun film well worth a watch.