MOVIE REVIEW: House of the Rising Sun (2011) **

Review:
Dave Bautista is about as good at acting as he is professional wrestling…he's great when just asked to stand around and look menacing, but if you ask him to talk or emote, you're asking too much.

"House of the Rising Sun" is the story of Ray (played by Bautista), a crooked cop who spent six years in prison before being hired as security at a brothel/illegal casino fronting as a nightclub upon his release.  One night, while Ray is covering the door for his buddy who no-showed his shift, a pack of shotgun toting thugs instruct him to lead them to the vault or he'll have to talk to the boom stick.  Ray, ever the cool cat, calmly leads the masked thugs to the vault…so calmly, no suspicions are aroused despite walking through a busy nightclub environment.  Anyway, the thugs get their money, but while Ray is leading them out, the owner's kid sees the thugs and proceeds to shout at the top of his lungs, "OMG! THEY'VE GOT SHOTGUNS!" (paraphrasing)

Before we know it all hell has broken loose, the boss's kid is dead, the thugs get away, and Ray is left to answer a bunch of questions.  Because it was his buddy who no-showed the doorman shift, leaving Ray to work it, and because he did nothing to stop the robbery, all suspicions by both police and the mob family who own the joint fall on him.  To top it off Ray's ex, a cocktail waitress at the nightclub named Jenny (played by Amy Smart) has been shacking up with Ray's mobster wannabe dickhole of a boss, Tony (played by Dominic Purcell).  Poor guy…what is he to do?

"Whaddya mean I don't get to Powerbomb anybody in this movie?
That's all I know how to do!  That's all I know how to do well anyway."

There is a lot to want to like about this flick.  Writer/Director Brian A. Miller (in his directorial debut) actually does a great job capturing mood and tone.  He even manages to coax one of the best (and by that I mean "lively") performances out of Danny Trejo as Carlos, the boss of the boss, that I've ever seen.  Add to that a couple of admirable performances from Purcell and Smart, along with a grossly underused but still fun to watch Craig Fairbrass, and you've got the makings of a pretty decent flick.

Unfortunately with all of those positives, "House of the Rising Sun" has three things going against it:  It's leading man can't act, there's no real action to be found anywhere in the film save for a couple of shootouts, and the payoff at the end is so underwhelming that to call it underwhelming doesn't do it justice. 

Sure, I could sit here and poke fun at the cheap gunshot effects (we're talking DIY off Youtube videos cheap), or some of the cheesy by-the-numbers dialogue between Ray and Jenny, or Ray and Tony, or Ray and his ex-partner on the force and fellow crooked cop Jimmy (played by Brian Vander Ark of The Verve Pipe fame), but that would just be me kicking a movie when it's down.

"House of the Rising Sun" proves that Bautista would make a great number one henchman, and Brian A. Miller has a future as a director.

 VERDICT:  ** out of 5                                    

Domestic Total Gross: 

N/A

Distributor: 

Lionsgate

Release Date: 

July 1, 2011

Genre: 

Action/Crime/Thriller

Runtime: 

1 hrs. 28 min.

MPAA Rating: 

R

Production Budget: 

$1.5 million

Synopsis:

Ray, an ex-con, is starting a new life looking to stay out of trouble. One evening, on Ray's watch, the nightclub he works for is robbed and the owner's son is shot dead. As his criminal past is exposed Ray hunts for the person responsible for this crime in an effort to clear his own name. Ray must get to the bottom of this as both the mob and cops start to close in on him as their target suspect. (Written by Elizabeth Obermeier, Marketing Manager)

Dominic Purcell as he remembering the salad days of
his career as "John Doe" on FOX.

Official Site | IMDb