But this isn't Clint Eastwood playing some aging gunfighter clearly past his prime or a growling next-door neighbor in his 80s. Stallone/Jimmy is still freakishly muscled, the veins bulging from his arms and often-shirtless torso as if he's some Steroid Era slugger for the Oakland A's.
As Jimmy gets into one bloody brawl and deadly shootout after another, coming out on top every time of course, it's just a given that he's stronger, quicker, deadlier and a better shot than all these punks less than half his age. Why? Because he's Sly Stallone! He's narrating the movie! He's not going anywhere.
After Jimmy and his partner Louis (Jon Seda) take down a mark who turns out to be a corrupt cop turned New Orleans thug, all hell breaks loose in the Big Easy. The strait-laced Det. Taylor Kwon (Sung Kang, best known in America for a few "Fast and Furious" movies) arrives from D.C. and finds himself paired up with Jimmy in a mutually beneficial pursuit of justice, even as he keeps reminding Jimmy he's eventually going to take down Jimmy as well. That's probably because Jimmy keeps on killing the bad guys before Kwon can arrest them and read them their Miranda rights.
"Bullet to the Head" happily indulges in many action-pic cliches, including the amateur surgeon who expertly removes slugs from the whiskey-anesthetized shooting victim. (The slugs always make the same "plinking" noise when deposited into a metal tray that the non-surgeon apparently keeps on hand just in case.) And if you think this movie is going to avoid an extended confrontation in an abandoned warehouse, your expectations are way too high for a movie titled "Bullet to the Head."
To its credit, the film does take one overly familiar tableau and has great fun with it, thanks in large part to Christian Slater's performance as a wealthy drunken patsy who quickly realizes the folly of keeping quiet when there's a Stallone with a pair of pliers hovering over you. It's a hilarious scene.
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