Today’s quick review: 4Got10. Brian Barnes (Johnny Messner), the sole survivor of a desert shootout, wakes up with a bullet in his gut and a bad case of amnesia. Driving away from the crime scene with $3 million in cash and drugs, he becomes the number one priority of DEA Agent Bob Rooker (Dolph Lundgren) and drug kingpin Mateo Perez (Danny Trejo), as well as a corrupt local sheriff (Michael Pare) trying to cover up his misdeeds.
4Got10 is a budget crime movie that chronicles the tangled events following a drug deal gone wrong. 4Got10 shows modest potential, thanks to its workable premise and a cast that includes Dolph Lundgren, Danny Trejo, and Vivica Fox. However, unconvincing writing, misguided direction, and amateurish action quickly squander that potential, resulting in a flimsy, unsatisfying watch.
4Got10 suffers from a laundry list of problems. The most glaring issue is that the plot is badly backloaded: nearly all the important revelations are sandwiched into the last ten minutes of the movie, long past the point when they ceased to matter. The logic of the plot breaks down at several key places, from the impossibly shortsighted actions of the sheriff to the bungled mystery surrounding Brian’s identity.
Even the action is mishandled, a significant weakness for a movie with little else going on. The action scenes are too few in number for a movie that feels like it wants to be an action flick. The fight choreography borders on the nonsensical, with poorly-conceived confrontations, spasmodic flailing at every gunshot wound, and gunshots animated with low-budget CGI in a futile attempt to add impact.
4Got10 makes poor use of its stars. Dolph Lundgren shows up in a handful of scenes, none of them involving any real action. Danny Trejo delivers one-dimensional exposition lines rather than his usual, tough persona. Vivica Fox’s character, Rooker’s boss, is all but unnecessary, and her overacted lines make her more of a distraction than anything. Even Johnny Mssner, the film’s main character, plays an oddly passive role in the story.
Smaller mistakes pepper the movie. Minor characters receive too much attention, from the distinct personality quirks of characters with less than a minute of screen time to the title cards used to introduce bit players. The arcs of major characters are tied off with no real payoff or sense of closure. Much of the film’s dialogue comes across as repetitive or stilted, and even the camerawork has noticable flaws.
4Got10 offers modest amounts of unintentional entertainment. Though its mistakes fall short of hilarious, 4Got10 rewards a critical viewer with a wealth of flaws both major and minor. The movie deserves some credit for a decent premise and a coherent, if unfulfilling, story, but its execution effectively hamstrings it. For a heist movie of similarly low quality from the same director, check out Checkmate. For a much better amnesia story, check out Memento.
4.1 out of 10 on IMDB. I give it a 4.0 for deeply flawed writing and directing.