Producers: Marc Petey, Jonnie Broi, James C. Clayton, Ryan Ennis, Zach Steele, Ryan Petey, Paul Engstrom, Pieter Stathis and Thomas Potter Director: James C. Clayton Screenplay: Cooper Bibaut and Danny Mac Cast: Vinnie Jones, Lina Lecompte, James C. Clayton, Janvier Katabarwa, Danny Mac, Glenn Ennis, Phil Granger, Lori Triolo, Cooper Bibaud, Michael Mitton, Shane Leydon, Blaine Anderson, Matthew Graham and Gaston Morrison Distributor: Lionsgate
Grade: D-
This bargain-basement action thriller starts out in a junkyard, a setting that accurately reflects both its quality and where it should wind up.
“Bullet Proof” is pretty obviously a bro movie—an effort in which a bunch of buddies who’ve watched a lot of macho movies decide to make one themselves. The guiding force behind it was presumably James C. Clayton, one of the founders of Motorcycle Boy Productions as well as their go-to star. He also directed the movie as well as providing the story that Cooper Bibaut and Danny Mac made into the screenplay. Both of them also have roles in the picture.
But enough of that. What has all their conjoined toil wrought?
Not much, as it turns out.
In that opening junkyard sequence, The Thief (Clayton)—like Clint Eastwood, a man with no name—steals a bag of money from minions of crime lord Temple (snarling Vinnie Jones), and, after a chase and gunfight, absconds with it in the car of one of the big guy’s lackeys. But there proves to be someone in the trunk—Temple’s pregnant wife Mia (Lina Lecompte)—who’s being helped by a turncoat to escape from her vicious husband and make her way back to her family in Colombia, no less.
Our hero reluctantly agrees to drop her off at the motel where she’s supposed to be picked up for transport to South America, but by then Temple has tortured her plans out of her helpers among his crew and dispatched The Frenchman (Janvier Katabarwa), a suave, all-purpose hit-man, to retrieve her, compelling The Thief to show his noble side and save her. Meanwhile Temple and his henchmen, callow millennial Skinny (Mac) and beefy Griz (Glenn Ennis, presumably a relative of producer Ryan) are also in pursuit and show up for occasional confrontations, during which Jones sneers, Mac preens and Ennis grumbles.
Thus The Thief and Mia go through a series of near-captures, which involve an unlucky clinic doctor (Lori Triolo), a couple of sleazy druggies, some singularly inept cops and lots of gunfire, as well as plenty of those overly familiar last-second rescues where a person about to be killed is suddenly saved by the intervention of somebody off-screen. The duo ultimately wind up at a field where The Thief had arranged for a pilot (Phil Granger, who’s lucky enough to appear only in voiceover) to pick him up and fly him out of the country with his bundle of money. There the bad guys are disposed of and our hero makes a final sacrificial gesture that’s apparently a goofy nod to “Casablanca,” if you can believe it. Bergman and Bogart need not fear the competition.
Clayton makes a lightweight leading man (his high-pitched voice is an impediment to the delivery of hard-boiled dialogue), and Lecompte is a kewpie-doll amateur, while Jones does a self-caricature. The rest of the cast does poses rather than giving performances. The picture—with a production design by Gary Ferguson, cinematography by Ryan Petey, editing by Zach Steele and music by Ben Peever—is threadbare, visually and otherwise.
“Bullet Proof” is really direct-to-cable fodder, but for some reason Lionsgate is sending it into theatres, as well as simultaneously streaming it. Unless you’re really desperate, it’s not worth a trip to your home entertainment center, let alone your local multiplex.