Review: A Man Apart

Rated R | 110 mins

A Man Apart feels like it’s an exercise in sheer randomness. There are more unnecessary characters here than there are in Jackass: the Movie. Most of them are undeveloped, too; we’re not even attached to our protagonist. His name is Sean Vetter, and is played by a horribly miscast Vin Diesel. At the beginning of this movie, Sean busts an infamous Mexico/United States drug exporter, who he has been chasing for seven years. When he arrests him, and is ready to deport him to the United States, the man, named Meno Lucero (Geno Silva), swears revenge. Meno has a double-life jail-term to serve, but this doesn’t mean that he can’t still have his payback. Days later, a man shoots Sean’s wife Stacy (Jacqueline Obradors) late at night, killing her. All signs point to Meno, but after talking with him a few times, Sean has a reasonable doubt that he had someone do it. Sean now points his attention towards the man who has taken over Meno’s drug empire, who is only referred to as “el Diablo.” Thus, a question arises: who is el Diablo?

There is talent here, but after watching the first ten minutes of A Man Apart, it’s easy to sense that it’s gone to waste. Director F. Gary Gray desperately needs to find some better material to work on. His work here is a nightmarish mess of vomit; there’s no creativity, no emotion. Diesel is not a great actor, folks. He’s good at looking pretty for teenage girls in action movies, as seen in xXx. A Man Apart contains hardly any action, though. Diesel is laughably bad in this movie and has no charisma, whatsoever. There’s actual acting involved; he doesn’t do acting. If you chuckle through it, A Man Apart may be tremendous entertainment, but if you’d like more than a slice of American cheese, you’ll find yourself chuckling your way out the door.

There are much better action flicks available on the shelves of your rental store, at this time. I’d definitely take Gray’s other film, The Italian Job, over this one. That movie had four things that this one doesn’t: good direction, good acting, good characters, and a good story. This one has no understanding of what it wants to be, and never will. If you must, watch it on cable. For now, don’t even think about plopping it into your DVD player.