When a movie has a so-so story, but the leading man is hotter than a blowtorch, can it be considered a good movie? Well, if Vin Diesel (Knockaround Guys) is the man, then oh yeah it is a movie one must see. Story, who cares about a story when you can spend almost two hours looking at his perfect body, and he can act too. Well, okay, so a movie needs a bit of a story, but drugs, drug trafficking and realistic action does not appeal to me. So this would have been a real dog of a movie if the leading man was, say Tom Hanks, a fine actor, but not much in the way of eye candy.

A Man Apart begins with Sean Vetter (Diesel) and his partner Demetrius Hicks (Larenz Tate, Biker Boyz) are working with the Mexican authorities to bust drug kingpin Meno Lucero (Geno Silva, Mulholland Dr.). They have been tracking him for seven years and tonight they will bring him down. What a way to start the movie, action, violence and the good guys get the bad ones. Cut to the DEA agents celebrating the biggest bust of their career. Along with the trailer we learn just how much Vetter loves his wife Stacy (Jacqueline Obradors, Atlantis: The Lost Empire), but she dies when mob/drug hit men break in that night and shoot up their home. Vetter is devastated and vows to bring down the new kingpin Diablo, at all costs.

The remainder of this film follows Vetter as he self-destructs and risks his career going after Diablo, the person that ordered the hit.

Not only do I have a problem with action movies that can possibly happen, I also don’t have any interest in movies about drugs. What strikes me as odd, is if Vetter and Hicks are the elite of the DEA, then they should know more about the idiosyncrasies of mob and drug traffickers. Director F. Gary Gray seemed to make it a point to explain what happens when you take down the leader, instead of just letting the story take us there. Then how is it these two guys are the best DEA agents when they have spent their entire career going after one man? How many big busts could they have made along the way? So along with a story I just couldn’t get into, there were also contradictions, too much explanation and not enough explosions, gunfire and dead bodies. Also appearing in A Man Apart were Steve Eastin, Timothy Olyphant (Dreamcatcher) as Hollywood Jack, Juan Fernandez, Jeff Kober (Enough), George Sharperson and Santiago Verdu. Diesel not only entertains us with those fabu biceps and shoulders, but he was spectacular as the grief stricken husband.  So, not a total loss of a movie, so with that in mind I give A Man Apart a five on the About-Movies.com scale.

Last updated: Thursday, March 20, 2008 02:45:59 AM

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