Review of Stand Off (2012) by Michael S — 16 Jun 2013

The poster, and title, for this movie is really misleading, it makes it seem like an action packed movie. Brendan Fraser and Colm Meaney are both holding guns yet both never, at any moment, in the film actually use a gun.

I suppose, for marketing purposes, it's easier to have a poster with guys holding guns, and changing the title to Stand Off, than it is to tell the truth about what the film is. It is a hostage comedy with minimal action, and it's a pretty lame one at that.

The script feels like it, barely, got out of the rough draft stage before they decided to film it. The film is completely inconsistent with its tonal shifts. You don't know what it wants to be, so it really has some severe identity issues that really cripples the film right from the start.

Even if there hadn't been those issues, the comedy isn't even that good to begin with and, again, it seems like the script didn't get past the rough draft and was filmed as such without making corrections or improvements.

The cast isn't bad at all, but there's hardly any chemistry between them. Individually, they're fine...as a whole, not so much. There's also unnecessary subplots that just dilute the point the film wants to make, though I'm not sure what that point is.

Perhaps the subplots were there to distract you from the fact that there really IS no point to this film. The film has its moments, but are they really enough to make up for the fact that the movie feels incomplete? No, absolutely not.

But I never really thought the film was bad at all, but it wasn't good either. It's below average at best. I just think if more work was spent on fleshing out the script, making the jokes better and having a consistent tone it would've been much better.

As it stands, it's just below average and it's the type of film that I would end up forgetting by this same time tomorrow night.