Review of The Cold Light of Day (2012) by Stoo B — 02 May 2012

Wrongly accused of murder, Will Shaw (Henry Cavill) has to somehow evade arrest and track down a briefcase that he knows nothing about in a foreign city he's never been to before to save his kidnapped family.

'The Cold Light Of Day' is a straightforward, sometimes enjoyable but mostly forgettable chase thriller. There's a fair helping of action and the exciting bits are, well, exciting enough, although they do have a tendency to drag on a bit. The plot frequently splutters about and even stalls at times but it manages to hold itself together just enough to keep most of us on board.

The casting could have been better too. There are no real complaints about the two leads; Henry Cavill works very hard and shows potential as an action lead while Verónica Echegui is spot on as irritating, fast-talking, feisty local girl that reluctantly gets involved in Will's plight. But did we really need Bruce Willis to put in a brief appearance as Will's secret CIA dad? Aside from his trademark tough-guy smirk and a blink-and-you'll-miss-it punch-up with a couple of baddies (which I'm sure wasn't him anyway and was just a stunt-double) he doesn't actually do anything.

It's not just Bruce Willis that apparently just came along for the free holiday in Spain either. While Sigourney Weaver clearly enjoys being a tough bitch, to say her acting was 'understated' would be a major understatement. And Colm Meaney - WTF? He must have been on screen for less than a minute and given the relevance of his character to the briefcase situation, why is he only in it for the closing seconds of the film? I actually like all of these actors but each of them would have been better off not being in this movie and conversely the movie would have been better if lower paid but more enthusiastic actors had taken their place.

Having just said that, the rest of the acting was pretty ropey too. One scene in particular ruins the tense mood completely: Will's family is being held hostage by some nasty men, yet when we see them all tied up having just been told that there's a pretty good chance that they'll be executed within the next few hours, their reaction is akin to having found out that their child's application for the preferred choice of faith school was unsuccessful and they'll have to go the local comprehensive instead.

Now, given a more consistent plot, tighter direction and actors that can actually act, this might have been a satisfying Hitchcock-style action thriller. Instead we end up with a corny and often clichà (C)d movie where cuckolded families are wonderfully forgiving, violent nightclub owners can be your best buddy and terrorists are just misunderstood and maybe just need getting to know better.

Oh and I still have no idea why it's called 'The Cold Light Of Day'.