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Review Uploaded
04/14/03

1 hr. 45 mins.
Starring: Vin Diesel, Larenz Tate, Timothy Olyphant, Jacqueline Obradors, Geno Silva
Directed by: F. Gary Gary

Rating: * ½ stars (out of 4 stars)

Anyone ready for yet another convoluted cop story in which its brooding action star wants to seek revenge while demonstrating his on-screen machismo? If so, you certainly wouldn’t be disappointed in the hyper-recycled and inane crime caper A Man Apart starring that flavor-of-the-month monosyllabic muscle-toned Vin Diesel. Word has it that New Line Cinema had this decrepit dirty-cop drama gathering dust on their shelves for over two years. Now that the hotshot Fast and the Furious and XXX commodity has fueled up his engines and taken over the mantle as the macho movie menace out to play the rules his own way, the studio figured that it would be prudent of them to capitalize on the Diesel delirium that’s running amok lately. Sure, that’s nothing new in the way a majority of the movie studios operate so New Line shouldn’t be any different in this practice. But at least if they’re going to weed out box office blood money based upon Diesel’s profitable shoulders, it could have been done without the desperate ploy of trying to usher out this painfully stale and overactive minuscule melodrama that beats its clichéd “cop on the edge” credo to death.

The reason in wanting to rip A Man Apart has a lot to do with the sloppy direction by F. Gary Gary who helms this pointless and overwrought vengeance vehicle with no clear vibrant imagination whatsoever. The fact that the movie’s star has all the cartoonish coldness in his on- screen demeanor that’s comparable to a refrigerated slab of meat and that Gary’s heavy-handed narrative is nothing but a regurgitated blueprint for the countless edgy cop flicks we’ve endured in the past are a couple of solid reasons to shun this wannabe hip violent action movie. To his credit, Gary does have a distinctive flair in stylizing his giddy mediocre productions with a sense of flashy kinetic urgency as he’s done previously with uneven crime dramas The Negotiator and The Italian Job. He pretty much gives the same treatment to this current film although appearing dressy-looking does nothing to improve this weak story being accompanied by its show-offy and outrageous violent tics. Overall, A Man Apart is a carelessly clunky and protrusive production that feels as deep as a nostalgically naughty Starsky and Hutch rerun-only without the natural charm and genuine conviction.

In his “fast and furious” attempts to “knock around guys” in all his arrogance and misdirected sense of urgency, Diesel plays widowed DEA agent Sean Vetter out to spill some serious blood and break some crucial bones when a notorious drug lord named Lucero (Geno Silva) and an ambitious collaborator who goes by the moniker El Diablo orders an immediate hit on his wife Stacy (Jacqueline Obradors from television’s NYPD Blue) in retaliation for previously being busted by Vetter and his partner-in-crime Demetrius Hicks (Larenz Tate) in a Mexican sting operation. Both Vetter and Hicks were former gangsters from the mean streets so their association with the L.A.-based elite DEA squad that they now belong to professionally is invaluable since the tandem know the rough sections and are familiar with the dubious workings of the squalor-infested settings.

With tensions escalating as El Diablo hopes to invigorate the carefully monitored drug cartel while dodging the imposing intrusion of the authorities, Vetter and his crime-fighting cohort “D” decide to moonlight as cocky rule breakers and determine to search for the heartless scum responsible for silencing the beleaguered cop’s beloved companion. Hence, Vetter becomes “a man apart” as he experiences a downward spiral while resorting to the recklessness that he once knew as a raw outlaw with trigger-happy tendencies. And thus the exaggerated suffering begins as Vetter and his associates (shouldn’t this be re-entitled A Few Men Apart seeing as though Diesel has others doing his dirty work as well?) start aimlessly kicking butt and smugly taking numbers as Gary assembles an array of ridiculous confrontations that feature repetitive doses of glorified gunplay and frivolous fistfights in a meager manner to show Diesel’s frustration with the perceived chaotic universe that consumes his unruly alter ego.

A Man Apart is criminal in the fact that it has nothing uniquely fresh or insightful to say about the overused avenging cop angle with the redemption and remorse label sloppily tacked on for a pseudo-compelling effect. This premise has been walked over methodically more times than a hapless henpecked husband. What makes this frantic fable all the more unconvincing and useless is the casting of Diesel and his inability to portray his anti-hero with any decent semblance of vulnerability. We certainly can buy into Diesel’s Neanderthal leanings when taking into account his pain when it simply entails him blowing up property or spraying bullets at will or strutting around like some overdeveloped ox out for some mindless sadistic fun. But when you present the action-oriented actor with lackluster material that calls for him to legitimately tackle his soul-searching mode in a tacky and tangy cop caper looking for the needed depth and dimension of its leading man’s damaged psyche, it’s clear that both filmmaker Gary and his lead Diesel are definitely out of their element in this respect. The only way that Diesel seems to express his moodiness in this empty-headed pistol-whipping picture is to callously exhibit his overwrought contempt in tedious, in-VIN-cible fashion.

Whether engaging in colorless car chases or flinging fists every which way or painfully reciting sophomoric and stilted dialogue as if he’s just mastered the alphabet during a recent stint in night school, Vin Diesel is obviously comfortable at this lofty level and his fans certainly wouldn’t mind chewing up this familiar gimmick because that’s what they’ve come to expect and appreciate. And if this continues to be the chosen outfit that Diesel wants to be fitted for in reference to his promising big screen career, he better realize that after a while his cinematic clothing will eventually shrink or be out of style permanently. In other words, time for Diesel to invest in a new wardrobe and wear something different and comfortable in regards to his laughably excitable existing one-note screen persona.

Although A Man Apart is admittedly an old film footnote buried on the bottom half of Diesel’s movie resume’ now that’s he gone on to bigger and supposedly better things, one thing is for certain-no action star should ever rest on the complacency of the seemingly popular past or present jittery junk that they routinely partake in.

Vin Diesel may be the marketable meal ticket behind the banal and boisterous money-producing fare that make the action-starved moviegoers and movie execs jump for prosperous joy but sooner or later some astute fickle filmgoers may suddenly get wise and bored therefore developing a rare need to see their larger-than-life malcontented muscle-bound meathead grow artistically beyond the tiresome and synthetic bombastic bravado.