Right from the first scene you can tell there's something not quite right with Catch .44. We open on Bruce Willis' familiar mug: defiant, smug, specked with what is presumably blood, staring slightly to the right of the camera, delivering a tough-guy speech at someone unseen. Straight out of Pulp Fiction, right? So why does it feel so off? Let's forget for the moment that Pulp Fiction is over fifteen years old and it's a little late to be jumping on the bandwagon now. There's something more fundamentally wrong with this scene. It's just... not cool.
That must be it. Everything about Catch .44 lacks the hipness, freshness, and vivacity of Pulp Fiction, or even the better Pulp Fiction ripoffs. And yet it has all the ingredients for being cool. The plot is nonlinear, the dialogue is riddled with idioms and clichés and digressions, guns are pulled in many directions. Every other scene has hip music blaring from stereos or car radios (including a cassette of Bruce Willis' own so-80s-it's-hip-again cover of "Respect Yourself"). And yet, none of it works. The dialogue sounds cheesy and clunky instead of fast and fresh. The gunfights make no sense. Even the music scenes are more boring than atmospheric. Literally every attempt this movie makes to be hip falls flat. Not even Tarantino could fail this hard at making a Tarantino movie.
The plot centers around stripper-cum-drug-runner Tes (Malin Akerman, equally wooden as the younger Silk Spectre in Watchmen) and her doomed partners Dawn (Deborah Ann Woll, True Blood) and Kara (Nikki Reed, Twilight) trying to pull a job for crime boss Mel at a Louisiana truck stop. It all predictably goes wrong but not in any interesting way, and after an hour and a half I'm still not sure what it was supposed to be about. The plot is told mostly through flashbacks and keeps coming back to the scene at the truck stop, which doesn't get any better the fifth time we see it.
The only saving grace really is the presence of Forest Whitaker, who walks all over the movie like it was his job. The fact that his character makes no sense doesn't seem to faze him in the slightest. He jumps into every scene with a different accent, eventually settling on a baffling Tony Montana impersonation which is so wtf it's almost worth the whole movie. Less thrilling is Bruce Willis pretending to be Mickey Rourke, robe and bare chest and soul patch and all, as the crime boss Mel. Also, Brad Dourif is on screen for like two minutes. But the movie isn't about them but about Tes, and say what you want about her looks, Malin Akerman is about as charming as a blonde sack of potatoes.
Really though, seeing Catch .44 makes you appreciate Pulp Fiction that much more. Clearly it's difficult to be hip. Take this as a cautionary tale, young filmmakers! Don't try so hard! Or, if you do, hire Forest Whitaker.
Blu-ray Bonus Features
The Blu-ray comes with an audio commentary with director/writer Aaron Harvey, so you know precisely who to blame for this fiasco.
"Catch .44" is on sale January 20, 2012 and is rated . Action, Crime. Written and directed by Aaron Harvey. Starring Brad Dourif, Bruce Willis, Forest Whitaker, Malin Akerman, Nikki Reed.
