THE PLOT THUS FAR
Bruce Willis, Malin Akerman (Watchmen), Nikki Reed (The TWILIGHT Saga), Deborah Ann Woll (”True Blood”) and Academy Award® winner Forest Whitaker (The Last King of Scotland) star in the tough, sexy story of three hit women sent to rural Louisiana to intercept a big money dope deal. But when they get to the near-empty roadside café, bullets blast apart what was supposed to be a simple transaction. It could be a huge, bloody misunderstanding but it might also be a deadly double-cross. Shea Whigham (”Boardwalk Empire”) and Academy Award® nominee Brad Dourif (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest) co-star in this intense crime thriller with a killer twist.
WHAT WE THOUGHT
“Catch .44″ involves the three women doing one more job for Mel. He wants them to go to a diner and intercept a drug shipment before it has the chance to be exchanged. Sounds simple enough. But Kara is uneasy about the whole thing. Why is he sending them to a middle-of-nowhere diner forty miles out of town? Why are there cars in the lot when she thought no one was supposed to be there? And most importantly, why would Mel give them another job after the mess they made of their last one?
Tes is annoyed by Kara’s suspiciousness. After all, they’ve done this kind of thing before, and Mel hasn’t ever done them wrong. Dawn tries to smooth things over by telling a dirty but well structured joke about nuns going to confession. Eventually, they find themselves in the diner. The first part of their visit is repeatedly played throughout the film, albeit from slightly different angles.
As it turned out, Kara was right to feel suspicious. I cannot reveal why, except to say that it results in a three-way Mexican standoff. By itself, it goes on way too long. Intercut with lengthy flashback sequences involving bizarre and enigmatic characters, it becomes downright confusing. The reason for it happening is a very unlikely, very odd turn of events. There are specific lines of dialogue so jarringly out of place that they’re likely to generate lots of incredulous laughter. And then there’s a final twist so predictable that you don’t have to actually see the movie to know that it’s coming.
The Blu-Ray comes with a commentary track with the writer/director and editor. The Dolby TrueHD 5.1 track is really impressive for a film that looks like it was shot on the cheap. The 1080p transfer is pretty impressive until we hit exterior shots and a very noticeable glimmer of digital noise is present. Still, it’s not that bad. In the end, I’d recommend a purchase.
RELEASE DATE: 12/20/2011
