Having appeared as the big bad in Uncharted and dazzled in Official Competition last year, Antonio Banderas — muse of Pedro Almodóvar and star of Zorro — continues to light up blockbusters and art-house features alike as his career enters its fifth decade. It’s somewhat surprising, then, to see the sexagenarian Spaniard following Messrs Willis, Washington, and Neeson’s lead, flexing his geriaction muscles in DTV bound The Enforcer: a grotty neon-noir from first-time filmmaker Richard Hughes and original Point Break scribe W. Peter Iliff that’s every bit as generic as its title suggests.
You know the story – and that's the problem.
Banderas is Cuda, a long-in-the-tooth Miami mob enforcer who does femme fatale boss Estelle’s (Kate Bosworth) dirty work with ruthless efficiency by night, and fails miserably at fatherhood while reckoning with his sins by day. A shot at redemption comes Cuda’s way when he — alongside sweet-natured, street fighting protégée Stray (Mojean Aria, channelling Jesse Pinkman) — tries to save Billie (Zolee Griggs), a teenage runaway who’s been abducted by his own employers. You know the story — and that’s the problem.
To pay The Enforcer its dues, Callan Green’s pulpy, neon-hued and shadow-heavy cinematography skilfully conceals the fact this was actually shot in Greece, making for a frequently eye-catching evocation of Miami’s criminal underworld. Also, Banderas uses his sheer physicality and deploys some tremendously intense eye-acting to give Cuda some bite, elevating the material by externalising the gangster’s otherwise unexplored inner crises.
There are some things, though, that even the man who gave us Puss in Boots can’t fix. The film’s few potentially fresh wrinkles — a look at organised crime in the internet age, the possibility of found family for both Cuda and Stray — are immolated by Iliff’s cliché-addled screenplay; the villains are dire (Bosworth spends her five minutes of screentime tucked behind a desk; 2 Chainz’ pimp Freddie is most assuredly Not A Vibe); and action is surprisingly sporadic until a final act bloodbath, the outcome of which could’ve been effective were it not mystifyingly spoiled in the film’s opening. Frankly, we’ve seen all of this done — and done better — before.