Bullet to the Head – Film Review

It seems as Sylvester Stallone has been sticking to action and shoot em up flicks for the last couple of years, after Rocky Balboa came Rambo, The Expendables, The Expendables 2, coming soon The Tomb with Arnold Schwarzenegger; and now, his most recent release with Bullet to the Head. 

Stallone and Schwarzenegger never cease to entertain or delight me with their films, the duo has finally been working together back-to-back from The Expendables 1 & 2 and soon The Tomb. But each has had their slumps with solo films.

Stallone’s Bullet was…Rambo+Rocky+Dredd.
An interesting and fun flick, but left many questions unanswered, many unnecessary scenes, and could have used more scenes for certain parts of the film.

Here is the plot:
Jimmy Bobo (Stallone) is a hitman working with long time friend and partner Louis Blanchard (Jon Seda). After a hit in a hotel room where Bobo leaves a hooker alive, the two go to a bar where Blanchard is stabbed in the sides by Keegan (Holt McCallany) while alone and left to die; the culprit (another hit man assigned to take these two out from the boss) goes after Bobo in the bathroom but gets away, and Bobo finds his partner dead on a bench.
A new detective arrives in New Orleans to investigate the deaths; Detective Taylor Kwon (Sung Kang) figures it to be the work of Bobo and Blanchard; He notices a panther tattoo on the back of the hooker as well. He meets with Bobo to find the creator of this mess. Bobo doesn’t agree to work with him at first, but then saves Kwon from corrupt cops onto him to kill Kwon; the corrupt cops don’t want him finding out what is going on in the city, and Bobo agrees to work with him. Bobo takes an injured Kwon to his daughter’s tattoo parlor where she would perform surgery to take out the bullet; Kwon notices the same tattoo as on the hooker on Bobo’s daughter.
They kidnap one of the kingpins working with the mobsters running the city, and kill him, only to be hunted by Keegan and other men, leading to Bobo self destructing his home after they escape.
Kwon meets with the lieutenant and discovers he is also crooked and when he tries to kill Kwon, Bobo appears to the rescue and saves him once again. Meanwhile, Bobo’s daughter is kidnapped by the kingpins and the two agree to meet in an abandoned warehouse.
Keegan confronts Bobo, where they have an axe fight. The fight ends with a knife stabbed into Keegan’s neck and Kwon shooting Keegan to death. Bobo shoots Kwon to make it seem like he escaped, and Bobo’s daughter stays with Kwon as to form a relationship;
In the near future, Kwon and Bobo meet again at a bar, where Kwon says he did not tell the police of his whereabouts, but if Bobo continues his work, Kwon will hunt him down.
Bobo welcomes him to try, and drives off in a new Ferrari.

Stallone delivers a ripped and well kept body from his Rocky and Rambo days, as well as a kick-ass hit man character, but the story lacks quite a bit.
For one, the kingpins were rarely discussed, only the head was talked about coming from Africa and building the empire, but as far as the police involvement and such, none was mentioned; the viewer just discovered which cop would show up at the meetings or try to kill Kwon.
Also, the whole concept of the black Panther tattoo on the hooker and Bobo’s daughter was interesting, because Kwon mentioned that is why he didn’t kill the hooker, because Bobo’s daughter has the same tattoo…but other than that, no explanation was given as to the meaning of the tattoo or to anyone else having that tattoo.
It’s always fun to have some backstory as to what started on the hit man journey too, but a few points just describe his past in crimes, and Lisa (Bobo’s daughter) mentions he grew up on the streets and that is all he knows.
Some of the dialogue was not flowing with the movie, so that seemed weird a few times to have certain lines said when there could have been better written scenes.

Overall, a 6.5/10, sorry to say, but, glad to say because it was Sylvester Stallone, and a big fan of him myself, that 6.5 will not affect my future Stallone viewings or continuing viewings of past films. This fill will still be gladly added to my movie list!