Good concept, poorly executed.

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

This film has it all: The cop, the drugs, the cartel, and a priest(?) The cop troubled by the loss of his family, who works vice, who drinks and doesn't play by the rules. The drugs made into a statue, and put into a church by mistake. The cartel want it back. So the cop and the priest are gonna stop them. However these plot lines are put together with such a lack of skill that this film is irritating from the start.The cartel import and sell drugs. They swear a lot and have guns. Some of them are quite muscled. None of them can fight. No scene involving the cartel is in any way memorable. The priest (Christian Slater) used to be special forces. Neither the cartel or the priest are well acted.Okay, so the cop lost his family but just in case you can't pick up on that there's loads of flashback scenes of family together and too many more of them getting killed. He works vice he licks mysterious white powders to identify them. Yes, it really is that bad. And his drinking is not believable: there's lots of scenes of him drinking alcohol - hip flasks, mixing into coffee, washing down the aspirin while driving, etc - but never as much as would get anyone drunk. He doesn't play by the rules: he goes to a gun fight with only his fists, then he decides to face down a speeding car with armed folk inside shooting at him on foot with just his handgun, then he decides that the best course of action would be to ambush the cartel in the church with just him and the priest. Utter balls.There's lots of shooting and people dying. There's drug use and sex but without any point. Most of it could have been implied and then this mess could have been shown on TV.The end doesn't come soon enough.

Seriously. This movie was bad.I like Cuba and Christian, but they were phoning in their performances. I felt like they gave up because they knew this was a bad script and poorly filmed.It looked like something a film student made or otherwise was filmed with 1980 technology - in a bad way.The chick Jade - yuck. Ridiculous "acting" if you could call it that. I had to look her up on IMDb to see if there was someone stupid enough to have cast her in something else; because I was otherwise convinced she landed the part because she was banging a producer. Cardboard movement and staged shots and clothing for that ugly tattoo on her back.The ending - clichéd. Far-fetched priest.Only redemption was fight scene in hotel.

Was there anyone really clamoring for a reuniting of Cuba Gooding Jr. and Christian Slater, especially considering their previous team-up ("Lies & Illusions") was one of the worst direct-to-DVD movies of recent years? To make matters worse, this production is not only Canadian, but it's written and directed by one of Canada's worst filmmakers (Damian Lee). To be fair, the end results are somewhat better than "Lies & Illusions". For a cheap Canadian movie, the visual look of the movie is slicker and more expensive-looking that you might think. And it's nice to see a Canadian movie actually set in Canada (though at times the movie seems reluctant to admit that fact.) But overall, the movie is very forgettable. The combination of Lee's bad direction and inadequate screenplay make a number of moments in the movie somewhat incoherent. Gooding's performance is nothing special, and Slater is unconvincing and unintentionally amusing playing a priest. The movie isn't aggressively bad, but it creeps along at a sluggish pace because there simply isn't enough story here.Come on, Cuba and Christian! I know you've screwed up your careers enough to be now stuck in direct-to-DVD productions, but surely you could still find better scripts than this! Sure, I know you have bills to pay, but you could at least volunteer your services for a great director's independent film between making schlock like this.

I am always interested in a Cuba Gooding Jr. movie, as his personality can carry even crappy plots. I feel bad for Cuba as the last few films he has made have been TV movie dramas at best.This movie is no exception as the film work and writing are slow and dull. Though there were a few good scenes, such as the scene when Cuba visits the snake man.I would advise against watching this movie, it is a drama/action film, but is missing the action and drama to keep you interested beyond the first 20-minutes.Though I was able to watch the entire thing, I do feel it was overall a waste of time and I wish I had not seen this film.It reminds me of a late night HBO rerun movie that you might watch if you have nothing else to do, and even then you probably won't walk away from the film even remembering that you saw it or anything interesting in it.Though I love Cuba's acting, and I hope he hits a few more home runs in his career, this is not one of them.