Momentum
                                   
Director: Stephen S. Campanelli
Year: 2015
Rating: 6.0
I like a film that doesn't waste time. No dilly-dallying. My time is valuable (not really). We jump right into a bank robbery - no need to see the planning or who the robbers are - just forget that part. We know they would end up in the bank with all the customers on the floor. This isn't Ocean's Anything. I like that the bank's security to the vault is a body scan of the bank manager and even a lost tooth won't pass the test. It doesn't seem the most practical - isn't he allowed sick days or vacation or dental work? Anyways, the tooth is stuck back in and the four - no make that three after they kill one - walk out with the diamonds they came for. And unknowingly, a stick drive. The film is pretty standard action these days - with a touch of brutal torture - but it stars Olga Kurylenko - for me the B Queen of Action films of late - and that is good enough for me. I am not fussy. Kurylenko killing guys in various ways is a guilty pleasure of mine. Hell, she is from Ukraine, so it is entirely believable. 



It is the loose ends that always go wrong. This group of thieves was hired to rob the diamonds with the stick inside. So just pay them off and let them go on their merry way with a payoff. But the big boss tells his killer (James Purefoy) to clean up the loose ends. Meaning killing them. The Big Boss is played by Morgan Freeman! Who literally phones in his performance with that famous voice of his. I mean literally. He calls up Purefoy and asks, is it done, throughout the film. That is similar to another film  -The Courier - that I saw recently - coincidentally also starring Kurylenko - in which Gary Oldman sits in a chair and keeps calling the bad guys and asking is she dead yet? I wonder if there is a Hollywood rate for getting big stars 30-minutes of their time to make phone calls?  He plays a Senator here who has ambitions and he needs that drive. Why it was in a bank vault in a sack of diamonds makes zero sense. But then most of the film doesn't.



The loose ends don't get cleaned up so easily. Kurylenko gets away and starts killing them. This takes place and was filmed in South Africa, and I have my issues with hotels. A big shoot-out takes place, a few dead bodies are cleaned up, a chase in the parking garage - and no one in the hotel seems to notice. Purefoy is good in this - he takes all his humanity out of his eyes - dead cold. The look I try to get when my girlfriend asks me to do something that I don't want to do - never works.  This was apparently supposed to be part of a series - which may explain the abrupt ending - or they couldn't afford to pay Freeman any more money - but it is rather strange. Directed by Stephen S. Campanelli, who has been camera operator on a ton of films - including many for Clint Eastwood - who gets a thanks in the credit. Not the brightest action film, nor with dialogue that will prick up your ears - but the action is sold.