Please Scroll Down to See Forums Below 
thebabydoc
New member
from CNN.com-http://www.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/Movies/04/04/review.man.apart.ap/index.html
Review: Vin Diesel can't drive 'A Man Apart'
Awkward acting, confusing action sink movie
Friday, April 4, 2003 Posted: 10:45 AM EST (1545 GMT)
Vin Diesel plays a DEA agent out for vengeance in "A Man Apart."
(AP) -- It took Sylvester Stallone three "Rambos" and maybe four of his "Rockys" over a 12-year period before he became painful to watch. Vin Diesel has managed the same with just a few movies in a couple of years.
The decent sci-fi thriller "Pitch Black" prepped Diesel to emerge as an action figure for the new century. The dumb but comparatively harmless "The Fast and the Furious" propelled him to star status, then last summer's repugnant, blockheaded "XXX" confirmed his appeal with the action crowd while raising portents of Stallone deja vu among the rest of us.
As a Drug Enforcement Administration agent fighting a new menace among Mexican drug cartels in "A Man Apart," Diesel turns not quite as ridiculous as Stallone at his worst, but he definitely cuts an unpleasant figure.
And Stallone, no matter how outlandish his characters or movies have become, still retains trace elements of the lovable lunkhead he played in the first "Rocky."
Diesel has no such amiability to fall back on. He was a brooding, stone-faced anti-hero in "Pitch Black" and "The Fast and the Furious," a cartoon, extreme-sports yahoo in "XXX." All around, no real depth required.
In "A Man Apart," Diesel tries to be a loving husband and honorable crusader for justice turned to the dark side by grief and rage. No one's expecting "Richard III" out of the guy, but Diesel is awkward and affected pretty much anytime he's not aiming punches or bullets.
No finesse to action sequences
Diesel plays agent Sean Vetter, who along with partner Demetrius Hicks (Larenz Tate) and a team of undercover narcotics cops, have just brought down a vicious Mexican drug kingpin (Geno Silva).
The leadership void among the cartels leads to the rise of a shadowy new figure called "Diablo," who begins a bloody campaign to control U.S.-Mexico drug-running.
Larenz Tate is Diesel's partner on a team of undercover narcotics cops.
"A Man Apart" is just like "Traffic," only moronic. The cartel leadership inexplicably orders a hit on Vetter, which makes about as much sense as a general trying to win a war by targeting a single foot soldier.
The resulting tragedy at Vetter's home turns him nasty, and upright best-buddy Hicks absurdly tags along on his destructive, unlawful quest for vengeance.
The senseless plot is meant only to connect the dots between the bloody action sequences. The idiocy of the story and Diesel's bad acting would not necessarily sink "A Man Apart" if director F. Gary Gray ("The Negotiator") had applied some finesse to the fisticuffs and gunplay.
The action often is edited with such choppy quick-cuts it's impossible to tell who's doing what to whom. Midway through, Gray serves up one of the most ridiculous shootouts ever captured on camera, where it doesn't seem to matter what everyone's aiming at so long as they all keep firing.
This mess is driven by Anne Dudley's bombastic score and phony street lingo from screenwriters Christian Gudegast and Paul Scheuring, whose script also provides suitably leaden voice-overs for Diesel to mumble his way through.
When captured early on, Silva's druglord warns Vetter, "Things are only going to get worse for all of us."
Ditto for us as Diesel expands on his filmography.
Review: Vin Diesel can't drive 'A Man Apart'
Awkward acting, confusing action sink movie
Friday, April 4, 2003 Posted: 10:45 AM EST (1545 GMT)
Vin Diesel plays a DEA agent out for vengeance in "A Man Apart."
(AP) -- It took Sylvester Stallone three "Rambos" and maybe four of his "Rockys" over a 12-year period before he became painful to watch. Vin Diesel has managed the same with just a few movies in a couple of years.
The decent sci-fi thriller "Pitch Black" prepped Diesel to emerge as an action figure for the new century. The dumb but comparatively harmless "The Fast and the Furious" propelled him to star status, then last summer's repugnant, blockheaded "XXX" confirmed his appeal with the action crowd while raising portents of Stallone deja vu among the rest of us.
As a Drug Enforcement Administration agent fighting a new menace among Mexican drug cartels in "A Man Apart," Diesel turns not quite as ridiculous as Stallone at his worst, but he definitely cuts an unpleasant figure.
And Stallone, no matter how outlandish his characters or movies have become, still retains trace elements of the lovable lunkhead he played in the first "Rocky."
Diesel has no such amiability to fall back on. He was a brooding, stone-faced anti-hero in "Pitch Black" and "The Fast and the Furious," a cartoon, extreme-sports yahoo in "XXX." All around, no real depth required.
In "A Man Apart," Diesel tries to be a loving husband and honorable crusader for justice turned to the dark side by grief and rage. No one's expecting "Richard III" out of the guy, but Diesel is awkward and affected pretty much anytime he's not aiming punches or bullets.
No finesse to action sequences
Diesel plays agent Sean Vetter, who along with partner Demetrius Hicks (Larenz Tate) and a team of undercover narcotics cops, have just brought down a vicious Mexican drug kingpin (Geno Silva).
The leadership void among the cartels leads to the rise of a shadowy new figure called "Diablo," who begins a bloody campaign to control U.S.-Mexico drug-running.
Larenz Tate is Diesel's partner on a team of undercover narcotics cops.
"A Man Apart" is just like "Traffic," only moronic. The cartel leadership inexplicably orders a hit on Vetter, which makes about as much sense as a general trying to win a war by targeting a single foot soldier.
The resulting tragedy at Vetter's home turns him nasty, and upright best-buddy Hicks absurdly tags along on his destructive, unlawful quest for vengeance.
The senseless plot is meant only to connect the dots between the bloody action sequences. The idiocy of the story and Diesel's bad acting would not necessarily sink "A Man Apart" if director F. Gary Gray ("The Negotiator") had applied some finesse to the fisticuffs and gunplay.
The action often is edited with such choppy quick-cuts it's impossible to tell who's doing what to whom. Midway through, Gray serves up one of the most ridiculous shootouts ever captured on camera, where it doesn't seem to matter what everyone's aiming at so long as they all keep firing.
This mess is driven by Anne Dudley's bombastic score and phony street lingo from screenwriters Christian Gudegast and Paul Scheuring, whose script also provides suitably leaden voice-overs for Diesel to mumble his way through.
When captured early on, Silva's druglord warns Vetter, "Things are only going to get worse for all of us."
Ditto for us as Diesel expands on his filmography.
