Homefront

You could write the script yourself. Actually, Sly Stallone did the honours, but that's by the by.

Triviapedia notes that Jason Statham was a member of the British diving team for 12 years before becoming a model for French Connection and being picked by Guy Ritchie for Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels.

In his present role of action star, he plays an undercover cop who is forced into retirement after helping to put a New Jersey drugs syndicate away for life.

After moving further and further out of range he settles in a Florida mansion with his sparky 10-year-old daughter. His wife died of cancer off screen. He's staying incognito, out of trouble.

The local villain (an unexpectedly nasty role for James Franco) cooks industrial amounts of drugs in an Everglades shack while fronting a boat repair business. The faeces hits the fan, however, when colleagues (thugs) of the imprisoned Mafia boss find out where The Stath is hiding.

Meanwhile over half the movie has passed. And now it's crunch time. Will the girl be kidnapped? Will the heavies be taken down? Will Franco get his?

Silly questions; obvious answers. Beat-'em-up pictures require humour to lubricate their torture. Sadly, The Stath doesn't do jokes. He likes big guns and hand-to-hand combat. Explosions? Of course! And yet the tension leaks interest due to a high cliche content.

The best thing about Homefront is that Winona Ryder is back. She plays Franco's squeeze, a sex bomb in black who couldn't change a light bulb without falling off the chair. Let's hope she moves to better things and lays this dead film to rest.