Movie Review: Homefront

Homefront

Release Date: November 27th 2013
Studio: Open Road Films
Director: Gary Fleder
Main Cast: Jason Statham, James Franco, Winona Ryder, Kate Bosworth, Rachelle Lafevre, Izabela Vidovic, Omar Benson Miller.
Screenwriter: Sylvester Stallone (screenplay) | Chuck Logan (novel)
Genre: Action | Crime | Thriller
MPAA Rating: Rated R for strong violence, pervasive language, drug content and brief sexuality.

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Storyline: HOMEFRONT stars Jason Statham as former drug enforcement agent, Phil Broker, a family man who moves off the grid with his daughter, to a seemingly quiet bayou backwater to escape his troubled past. However, Broker’s world soon becomes anything but quiet once he discovers that an underbelly of drugs and violence riddles the small town. Soon, a sociopathic methamphetamine kingpin, Gator Bodine (James Franco) puts Broker and his daughter in harm’s way forcing Broker back into action in order to save his family and the town.
With the screenplay written by Sylvester Stallone, who first established worldwide recognition as a writer when his screenplay Rocky, won the Academy Award® in 1976 for Best Picture, Homefront is based on the book by Chuck Logan. The action-thriller is directed by Gary Fleder (Runaway Jury, Kiss the Girls) and produced by Stallone alongside Kevin King Templeton and John Thompson, with Trevor Short and Avi Lerner executive producing through Millennium Films. Kate Bosworth, Winona Ryder, Frank Grillo and Izabela Vidovic also star.

The story captured my interest from the start of the film with the drug bust gone horribly wrong and then the undercover agent resigning from that life to live out with his daughter in the quiet Bayous of Louisiana. But things don’t always stay swept under the rug like how you hope they do because the quiet life this dad wants for his daughter and himself gets turned up side down faster than a Nascar driver completing a lap. A schoolyard altercation between his daughter and a bully at school doesn’t end at the playground, not in those parts of town. People talk and stir things up and one thing leads to the next and before you know it, that drug bust gone wrong from 2 yrs ago comes biting you back in the ass.

Jason Statham once again delivers like he knows how. Pretty much every film that Statham has starred in I have been entertained and Homefront was no different. I think I’ll go ahead and say this might be my favorite Statham film. Maybe it was the father-daughter relationship he excelled at selling to the audience of a father that stops at nothing to protect his little girl or it could be the heart-stopping action he brought with his stellar fighting moves. Regardless Statham delivered. He was the perfect guy to play the role of Parker.

Now let me tell you who left me gaping with my mouth open. Kate Bosworth I didn’t recognize her at first then I was like holy shiz! I couldn’t believe my eyes, Bosworth really took to heart her role as a meth addicted because she sold me. She looked emaciated and just plain filthy, just like if she really was tweaking everyday. I want to say she lost weight on purpose for this role because she was just skin and bones and not the beautiful Kate we have come to know on the big screen in other films.

Homefront is worth every cent to go see at the theater, you will definitely get your money’s worth. It has all the right elements that made it the right kind of action-thriller. Plus its a film that can be enjoyed by both sexes, so ladies after you dragged your significant other to see The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, surprise your guy by taking him to see Homefront.