The Films of Chuck Russell

A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors

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The Blob

The Mask

Eraser

Bless the Child

The Scorpion King

I Am Wrath (June 11/16)

I Am Wrath follows John Travolta's Stanley Hill as he embarks on a campaign of vengeance after his wife (Rebecca De Mornay's Vivian) is murdered during a seemingly routine mugging, with the movie detailing Hill's efforts to get to the bottom of an impressively vast conspiracy that involves the police and the governor. (Hill's efforts are assisted by Christopher Meloni's mysterious and well-armed Dennis.) It's ultimately rather astonishing the degree to which I Am Wrath slowly-but-surely alienates the viewer over an often interminable running time, as scripter Paul Sloan offers up a paint-by-numbers storyline that's jam-packed with some of the hoariest, most laughable elements one could possibly imagine - with the movie's less-than-engrossing atmosphere compounded by an almost total lack of narrative surprises (ie it's immediately clear that this is hardly a random mugging). The sloppy, uninvolving vibe is perpetuated by director Chuck Russell's oddly (and, compared with the rest of his filmography, incongruously) low-rent visual sensibilities, with the cheap-looking production heightened by a wide variety of less-than-slick elements (including Russell's lamentable overuse of slow motion during action scenes). It's clear, too, that the proliferation of almost laughably generic characters, including an ambivalently corrupt cop and a menacing, malevolent politician, contributes heavily to the arms-length atmosphere, and there is, as a result, little doubt that the third act's big action showdown could hardly be less interesting or exciting. Travolta's perfunctory turn as the movie's less-than-convincing protagonist cements I Am Wrath's position as a pointless, pervasively lazy piece of work, which is especially disappointing given the relative strength of Russell's cinematic endeavors up to this point.