The DeMarco and Kinnick plot arcs of course intersect, with each actually offering Nick a golden ticket of sorts to achieve his dreams. Playing out against all of this interrelated melodrama is Nick's history with gambling addiction and his desire to get out of Vegas for good.
Revenge, which she evidently took from the Lorena Bobbitt playbook (at least in intent if not in actual outcome). Of course Nick prevails, and ultimately Holly shows up to exact her That Nick can't contend with DeMarco's two improbably huge bodyguards. The first real fight scene breaks out in DeMarco's luxe hotel room, when DeMarco unwisely thinks To help, his conscience gets the better of him, and he starts asking questions, which ultimately leads him to a smarmy gangster wannabe Who turns to him for help in exacting her revenge on the goons who raped her and then beat her senseless. She turns out to be Holly (Dominik Garcia-Lorido), a woman with a history with Nick (of course), Meanwhile a badly beaten young woman is dumped at an emergency room and keeps repeating "Nick" as a kind of mantra as frantic medicsĪttend to her disturbing array of wounds.
(not that it needs much exaggerating, mind you), as in his first interchange with the entitled young gambler named Cyrus Kinnick (MichaelĪngarano) who wants to hire Nick, ostensibly to be his bodyguard as he marauds through a series of casinos. That doesn't prevent Nick from occasionally exaggerating his skill Know that Nick is a basically decent guy who is trying to do the right thing.
This odd first glimpse at Nick in action, which frankly has virtually nothing to do with the main plot, at least lets the audience Director Simon West telegraphs that it's all a facade, though, long before Goldman's screenplay Wild Card is a bit more streamlined thanīut presents pretty much the same scenario as the first film, albeit with a slightly more vigorous eye toward some of the smarmier elementsĪ not very surprising prologue of sorts seems to set Nick up as a kind of idiotic interloper in a dispute between a pretty young womanĪnd a dope named Osgood (Max Casella). When the original screenplay for Heat was published, Goldman was typically unvarnished in assessing his own achievement, callingįilm a "major disaster." That may have been one reason he wanted to revisit the property, though it would be hard to classify WildĪs anything much better than a "disappointment," if not an outright catastrophe. Products, there's probably more than enough evidence that even a screenwriter of Goldman's inestimable talents is on something of a losing When a film resorts to a cameo by the inimitable Sofia Vergara, one where she actually continues her shill work for Pepsi Theįact that Statham only gets to strut his action hero stuff in a couple of admittedly visceral fight scenes is just one problem the film struggles Protection as he plies his trade on the vaunted Vegas Strip, as well as a young woman who has been brutally raped by a local gangster. Wild becomes involved with both a young gambler who wants The basic plotĭetails Statham as a Las Vegas based bodyguard of sorts named Nick Wild. Heat (filmed previously, and eponymously, in 1986 as a Burt Reynolds outing), is resolutely dumb a lot of the time. Goldman, who has never been shyĪbout offering his sometimes trenchant critiques of both the theater and film industries courtesy of his books The Season andĪdventures in the Screen Trade, is obviously not a stupid man, and yet Wild Card, which is based on Goldman's novel Though, when one has to come to terms with the fact it was written by William Goldman, one of the most iconic screenwriters of all time ( Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, All the President's Men, Marathon Man and The Princess Bride, to name only a few).
It becomes at least a little more difficult to just casually dismiss Wild Card, It's more than a little tempting to utilize the graphic that appears when this Blu-ray is first loading and simply call a spade a spade when itĬomes to this latest Jason Statham scowl-a-thon. Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman, March 31, 2015