White Elephant

Unfortunately, Bruce Willis' health problems are very prominent in his performance in this movie, which is a significant distraction and breaks the flow of the story. He obviously struggles to portray his character and deliver lines. Such a shame.

Otherwise, the movie is an OK action movie. The performances are solid with believable characters portrayed well by the cast.

The story is fairly standard for an action movie and there is nothing particularly memorable about it.

If you are a Bruce Willis fan you may find this difficult to watch, so best give it a miss.

Don't bother watching this because if you've seen the last ten movies in which Bruce Willis makes a cameo, this one is just more of the same. Gratuitous violence, tiresome, faux tough-guy dialogue, and mind-numbingly stupid gun-play don't make for much when it comes to entertainment, as if just throwing these elements into a pot will somehow produce anything fit for adult consumption.

Does this film have a story? It's hard to say when they hurl an endless torrent of blood and bullets at the audience in an attempt to distract you from the fact that if there is a story, it's too unoriginal to even mention. I've never played a video game, but I would imagine that Grand Theft Auto has more of a plot than White Elephant.

You can't even blame the actors in the movie. It's like pulling a bunch of garbage from the dumpster and expecting someone to cook a meal with it.

A few things writers of action movies should already understand:

• Drywall will not stop a round from an assault rifle, neither will a car door. Some high-powered rounds can go through an entire house and still kill you.

• If you want to kill someone on the sly, don't use a gun as it's too messy, especially if you are then going to take the body somewhere else to disposed of it. Just take the live guy to the disposal area, then get rid of him. If the cops stop you on the way there, it's a lot easier to explain a guy in the back seat than a corpse in the trunk.

• Try reading books so that everything you write isn't exactly like the last twenty movies you streamed. I doubt Hollywood writers can be bothered to read books, this seems obvious from their output of puerile doggerel like this film.

• If you can't choreograph a decent gun battle, stop thinking that five more in the film will improve things.

I suspect this was actually written by a 12-year-old and some of his buddies. It was comically bad from the start. I never saw so many people get wasted while standing around jabbering with someone with a gun while they themselves had guns hanging at their sides as if they had no idea what was about to happen. And then there were the gunfights in the middle of the night in residential areas that apparently had been evacuated.

You never really know what the motivation is for any of it, and poor Bruce Willis is so stiff it's sad to see. I guess they got him for the name recognition, but they could have used literally any older actor for his part - or merely grabbed someone off the street and fed him lines the way they likely fed them to Bruce.

Malkovich has become one of those actors whose movies you want to avoid, as I haven't seen him in anything good for some time, and he pretty much plays the same part in all of his later films. Olga K. Is also an actress who, while nice to look at, typically only plays in dogs.

But I did give this a four because I think it has some entertainment value as a comedy, as I was laughing out loud through parts, and it definitely isn't short on action. It's nothing more than a time waster, but I've wasted time watching worse.

But when you have sub-par writers and director, even the all star casting of John Malkovich and Michael Rooker couldn't save this film. It was your typical inane B film with a cliched story and nonsense constant gun fights. Stuntman turned seasoned writer and director Jesse Johnson gave us a typical bad B production with annoyingly loud and unfitting typical B film score, a lazy script (jointly written by three writers) and terrible directing. Even casting Olga Kurylenko as the tough-gal was cringe and unconvincing, and I'm sure part of that blame falls on Johnson's failure to direct his cast properly. You can tell this is the film where Willis started having health issues, but a good director could've easily hidden that. It's an ok one time watch, especially if you're a fan of the leads. It's a generous 6/10 from me, mostly for Rooker's outstanding performance and Malkovich's small but welcoming contribution.

Okay, Michael Rooker is a character actor who you know and love but for love nor money do you know his name?

This is an odd film - if not for Willis and Malcovich, it would be a B movie, but it's a good one - IMHO.

LOTS of bad guys! Tons of shoot 'em ups. No car chases.

The elephant in the room is Bruce Willis. Yes, this isn't his best, but he's still Bruce freaking Willis! I'm betting John Malcovich came along for the ride to be with his buddy Bruce. That's what friends do.

This is not Emmy or Globe material, but it's a fun movie to help pass a rainy afternoon or dull evening. Enjoy it for what it is.