This film ends up wasting each and every strength it begins with. It has a solid cast with Whitaker and Willis, a good looking female lead (Akerman) and a somewhat interesting premise. Things become bad pretty quickly though. Dialog heavy pieces are stretched too long and contribute little towards character development. In fact one can simply fast forward through them (there is a lot of urge to do that) and still completely understand the movie. Nonlinear editing can be an engaging tool in the hands of the right story teller, here it feels simply unnecessary. The director wants to emulate a certain style of film making; his craft however, is inadequate. The film ends up looking like a Tarantino wannabe contrived affair. Forest Whitaker unsurprisingly commands a captivating screen presence, which leaves us slightly puzzled as to why he agreed to be a part of this mess. Bruce Willis has an almost cameo appearance and gives a stock performance. Malin Akerman looks beautiful and has the screen presence of a star. But then that's about it.
Review of Catch .44
