Summary
Netflix action film Point Blank avoids selling the story and offers Anthony Mackie an easy career break while he awaits to honour that shield.
According to Netflix, audiences were crying for a remake of the 2010 story, but this time starring Anthony Mackie who is probably [spoiler alert] still in dreamland after landing the Captain American gig. Netflix action film Point Blank presents a desperate emergency room nurse, teaming up with a murder suspect (Frank Grillo – ensuring the worlds of MCU collide) to save his ex-wife. It’s a supposed race against time, highly pumped action thriller.
But it is an action void of all thriller genre tropes as it decides to sell the actor, not the story. The script of Point Blank lazily unfolds, introducing a nurse who is excited to start a family. All the dialogue is purposefully set to put the environment in a place where a nurse is on the run with an enraged killer trying to reach his nervously sweaty brother who is looking after a pregnant woman.
The environment is fine, instigating average high-speed chases and Anthony Mackie trying to pull off a nurse that suddenly becomes a highly resourceful runaway. The character ultimately fails because he does little to try to convince the audience of the characters’ career, apart from being able to inject morphine and adrenaline into the murder suspect to kick start the cat and mouse scenario.
Netflix film Point Blank attempts to insert music Baby Driver style to the chases and the action set-pieces, but it feels implemented as an afterthought from the director rather than part of the finished product. The music miscarries, with zero inducements to add excitement for the audience.
Unfortunately, Point Blank hits all the blanks because the film forgets the story. We are talking about a man that loves his partner who is extremely close to giving birth. There is barely any show of desperation to save her. The movie sells the partnership he has with the criminal more than his future aspirations of having a family. If that dimension were included, then we’d have a popular film on our hands, but Point Blank feels like a career break for Anthony Mackie while he waits to honour that shield.
Netflix action film Point Blank is the perfect late night action film you watch while trying to avoid falling asleep, and that’s all it will ever be, even if it does have Anthony Mackie and Frank Grillo trying to sell it.
