The Prince: Assassin Prince, Drug King and two Princesses

The Prince is the latest offering from Grand Rapids-born director Brian A. Miller. Shot in Alabama in late 2013, the film was given a limited theatrical release on Aug. 22, 2014, and became available as Video on Demand (VoD) the same day. Three weeks later, it gets its theatrical release in India. It is one of two movies Miller shot back-to-back with Bruce Willis in Alabama. The sci-fi film Vice, which is scheduled for release in 2015, is the other. The director attended Grand Rapids Community College and studied film-making at Grand Valley State University, before moving to Los Angeles in 2003. Miller is a 1993 East Grand Rapids graduate, who directed his debut Caught in the Crossfire, in Grand Rapids, in 2009. He also filmed 2011's House of the Rising Sun locally. The Prince and Vice are from Emmett/Furla/Oasis Films, the production company that backed Caught in the Crossfire and brought Bruce Willis to West Michigan for the action movie, Setup, in 2010. Michigan’s film subsidies have been a huge incentive. The Prince cost between $15-18 million. Duration is listed varyingly as 93 min and 103 min.

Jason Patric plays Paul, a former army-man who turned assassin, who’s now gone straight. His has died of leukaemia, and the widower now runs an auto-garage. He is extremely fond of his only child, a school-going daughter, Beth (Gia Mantegna). All seems to be well, until Beth disappears. Paul locates his daughter’s greedy, coquettish classmate Angela (Jessica Lowndes), who, on being offered money, reveals that Beth had become addicted to drugs, and had gone to New Orleans, with her drug-supplying boyfriend. The boy-friend is linked to a drug-lord known as The Pharmacy, and, in turn, The Pharmacy (Curtis ‘50 Cent’ Jackson) is controlled by a crime boss known as Omar (Bruce Willis). This is the same Omar who just happens to hate Paul for planting a car-bomb and killing his wife and daughter twenty years ago. In fact, back then, Paul’s target was Omar, but he did not take his car that day; his wife and daughter had borrowed it. Paul has little problem returning to his violent, violent ways, in order to rescue his dear, dear daughter.

Miller is the third choice to helm The Prince. It was John Carpenter first. Sarik Andreasyan (American Heist) was almost finalised, before Miller came in. Andre Fabrizio and Jeremy Passmore, who scripted Ride at Fox and San Andreas 3D, had been peddling this idea since 2008. Miller is a great fan of Die Hard and Lethal Weapon. This film, he says, was inspired by Clint Eastwood’s The Unforgiven and Kevin Costner’s Open Range. The writers were accused of plagiarising from Taken, but their take was that they had reworked the idea of Unforgiven and made it into a contemporary gangster tale.

Getting off to an interesting start, including a good montage that establishes the back-story along with the titles, the film then keeps slipping into less credible and finally incredible situations. Maybe dates was an issue, but in the length available, Miller is unable to do justice to any of the other actors besides Patric and Lowndes, and Lowndes is not convincing either. One car explosion is well-executed, though it loses impact on repetition. The only car chase--which is de rigueur these days but has come miles since the days of Bullitt--is tame. Yes, it is realistic, but this is not a realistic film—you do not have totally one-sided gun-battles in a realistic film. Same goes with the way Paul acquires guns and ammunition. We see him approach the same man twice, with a reference to his father being the hero’s friend. Andre Fabrizio and Jeremy Passmore fail to invest the narrative graph with any exciting fluctuation, once the protagonist hits the ‘I’m coming to get you’ trail. In a cliché that is almost laughable, Omar tells one of his errant operatives that he will not forgive him, for “…only God forgives”. And then Omar’s man-Friday, Mark, shoots him down in cold blood.

Jason Patric, who was the lead in director Miller’s The Outsider, is cast as the modern-day Clint Eastwood. He is deadpan for most of the film and even speaks in a low voice, perhaps to get the “Make my day” effect. Patric is sincere in the early part of the film, but slides off into mediocrity as the film progresses. Patric is the son of actor and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Jason Miller, and the grandson of Jackie Gleason. He played the role of a cop in Rush, then one of the leads in Sleepers, with Robert De Niro, Dustin Hoffman and Brad Pitt. More recently, he was noticed in Narc (2002), The Alamo (2004), and In the Valley of Elah (2007). He also starred in the Guy Maddin film, Keyhole (2012).

Jessica Lowndes has problems projecting the right age as well as right personality. In any case, hers is the most ill-defined character. Gia Mantegna as Beth has some chance to act as the climax draws nearer. Bruce Willis uses his stock-in-trade right-cheek contortion as he always does, but here it goes well with his role. An extended father-daughter-wife scene that is over-the-top and an ending that paints him as deluded and all-at-sea, make sure that he is wasted. Sleepy-eyed and ruffled-haired John Cusack has little to do except stand, talk and listen. Most of the conversation is inaudible anyway. The Grifters in 1990 was Cusack's first lead. He co-starred in Con Air (1997), opposite Nicolas Cage. Some of his other films:  Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997), High Fidelity (2000), The Raven (2012), The Butler (2013), Grand Piano (2014) and Bag Man (2014).

Rapper Curtis (50 cent) James Jackson III, now 39, a real-life drug-runner turned singer, has barely one half-a-dollar scene as a menacing drug-baron, and he looks the part. There’s not much you can perform if bullets start flying a minute after you are first seen on the screen, and it’s RIP next. He was probably cast because he has worked with Miller earlier. Korean singer Jung Ji-Hoon, alias Rain, plays the right-hand man of Omar. He is given a kohl (kaajal)-laced look and at first sight appears to be a gay character, but that angle is not developed. Packing a mean punch, especially in martial arts, he almost gets the better of Paul in hand-to-hand combat. Okay, I said “almost”. Rain made his Hollywood debut in the Wachowski Bros. Speed Racer and went on to play the lead in Ninja Assassins, also directed by the same duo.

And what was the title all about? Yes, I get the point that it is a nick-name. But firstly, it is ill-suited and secondly, it is merely mumbled once or twice in the film. At least The Pharmacy has a direct bearing upon the gent. Two young girls are at the centre of the story, so how about  two Princesses? Unless ‘The Prince’ was the hero’s code-name. Now, I can’t Crack that!

Rating: **

Trailer: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x23izb4_the-prince-2014-trailer-dailymotion_shortfilms