What Not To Watch: April Rain
It’s that time once again for you, the fine readers of BulletproofAction.com, to learn from my mistakes.
My latest mistake, watching the movie April Rain.
This movie is listed as an ACTION movie on IMDB. I caught it while watching Showtime Extreme, a network known for airing ACTION movies, but there were elements in this movie that should never be in any respectable ACTION movie.
For example…
- A Russian Mobster Playing In A Sprinkler: That’s right we are introduced to Kotov, one of the main villains of the film, while he’s playing in the sprinkler with his daughters.
- A Special Agent Refereeing A Neighborhood Soccer Game: I’m not sure what the point of this scene was, but they felt the need for the leader of the SIU, Agent Sikes (Luke Goss) to intercede in a neighborhood soccer game. The only purpose it served was as a lead in to an even worse scene…
- A Special Agent and His Wife Having An Uncomfortable Argument About Their Dead Daughter: I enjoyed Ally Walker’s work in Universal Soldier, but she is AWFUL AWFUL AWFUL in this movie. The “emotional scene” in the kitchen between her and Goss is one of the worst examples of acting I have ever witnessed and I sat through Ninja Vengeance.
- A Teenage Girl Talking About Getting Their Period: Are you kidding me?
- Another Special Agent’s Wife Showing Up At His Job To Confront Him About Being An Adulterer: Vincent Spano plays Special Agent Thomas, he is apparently gone undercover and is sleeping with another woman in order to get a used car salesman job with Kotov. This guy is such a good agent he didn’t notice his wife followed him and took pictures of him and the other woman. Then she shows up at his “top secret headquarters” with a gun because she is off her meds and she gets crazy when she’s off her meds.
- Annoying Neighbors Coming Over For Lunch: After terrorist hopeful Tariq is sworn in as a United States citizen, his wife throws a party and invites the most annoying neighbors on the planet over for a celebratory lunch. If these people lived next door to me, I’d move.
- Agents Having A Lover’s Quarrel On Their Cell Phone: When Rita the dispatcher is caught arguing with her significant other on the phone we get to see Sikes management skills as he tells her to get her head in the game. Really great stuff and something any supervisor or manager could put into practice.
- Nurses Having Small Talk Conversations About Traffic: This happens all the time in Stallone and Schwarzenegger movies.
- Slo Motion Scooter Chases: The only thing worse than the slo motion scenes of the scooter chase was the regular speed footage of the scooter chase.
- Way Too Much Movie After The Final Shootout: This movie goes on for several minutes after the shootout, where most other action movies would wrap up a few minutes after, April Rain goes on and on and then has an abrupt and open ended finale. If Writer/Director Luciano Saber is working on a sequel he should stop right now. In fact if he’s working on any movie, he should stop right now.
Another problem with the movie, the young agent in the thick of this plot between the Russian mobsters to sell terrorists guns and scooters, is played by Ryan Guzman. Guzman’s claim to fame is being in some of those Step Up movies. That doesn’t exactly give you “street cred” with the action movie fans and his performance in this movie does not leave anyone thinking “this guy has a future in action movies”. This would be the equivalent of Cannon Films trying to make Adolfo “Shabba-Doo” Quinones of Breakin’ fame an action star back in the 80’s.
April Rain is quite simply a terrible movie that no one who reads this, who has not already had the misfortune of seeing it, should even consider watching in their lifetime.
