Chances are you'll hear two deep rumbling noises while watching "A Man Apart". The first will be Vin Diesel's deeper-than-Plato voice. The second, the snores of other audience members.
Grief, this is tedious. So dull that, really, it's not even worth reading about...
Still here? Well, all right: Diesel is Sean Vetter, a DEA agent who's spent seven years tracking down a nasty Mexican drug ‘lord' importing nose-candy into the US of A. When the foreigner's finally banged up, the mysterious Diablo starts to take over his operation. His first act? To kill Vetter's wife...
Oh dear. Our Sean is far from pleased. In fact, he's A Depressed Man On The Edge! He drinks! He smokes! He stares out to sea! The situation is serious, but he'll get his man, even if he has smash every goddamn rule in the goddamn book, damn it!
And damn it, we do. Mired in postproduction for an age, this lobotomised thriller shows signs of desperate rewriting in the edit suite. Surely the idiot-guide voiceover was an afterthought, tacked on in an attempt to explain the shambolic plot.
It doesn't help much, other than providing a welcome distraction from the ridiculous dialogue. Diesel does what he can with the material, exuding the same charisma that made "xXx" watchable tosh. Kudos, too, for managing to keep a straight face when mouthing lines such as "I know that you are with me in spirit but I still miss you".
That's not the worst, but it sticks in the mind. As does Vetter telling a lapdancer, "You should have more respect for yourself" - a jarring piece of moralising in a film which takes every opportunity to ogle female flesh.
So, "A Man Apart" is hypocritical and stupid - well, it's an action film. What's unforgivable is it's dull, crawling along at a pace which leaves the audience to snooze, or twiddle thumbs and ponder what the F in director F Gary Gray stands for. We have some ideas.
A Man Apart (2003)
