Homefront

Homefront is not a typical Jason Statham film and that is a good thing. The trailers sell it as an action film, but it really is not. Homefront is more of a slow-burn thriller that has some decent action scenes sprinkled throughout. As Statham films go, Homefront is one of his better films and I really enjoyed Homefront.

Homefront opens with Jason Statham sporting a mullet, which if you’re imagining it being hilarious, you’d be right. Statham plays Phil Broker, an undercover DEA agent, who after a bust resigns and takes his daughter (Izabela Vidovic) to a small town to live the quiet life. His daughter puts a school bully in his place, but this causes the bully’s meth mother (Kate Bosworth) to call on her brother Gater (James Franco) to take care of things. The script written by Sylvester Stallone does a good job of exploring bullying and feuds. The feud in the film slowly spirals out of control and somewhere in the third reel begins to feel a bit unbelievable with all the coincidences and forced plot points.

Statham and Vidovic, as father and daughter, work very well together. Of all the scenes in the film, the quiet ones between these two are the best scenes. Vidovic is excellent in the film and avoids all the pitfalls of child characters in films. Statham does get some action scenes, but they are not the typical Statham fighting scenes – this could be a good or a bad thing depending on what kind of Statham fan you are. I though the action scenes were well done, if not a bit conservative. Franco turns in a great performance as the clever, smart, creepy and scary Gater.

Director Gary Fleder does well with the material. For the action scenes he emulates Paul Greengrass with the shaky-cam hyper-reality type shooting. It is not a bad thing, but it does cause the action to be disjoint at points.

I liked Homefront as a film, while the story does get a bit unbelievable near the end, the film is still entertaining.