The Cold Light of Day

The Cold Light of Day had been on my radar for quite a while mostly because the trailer featured Henry Cavill running dramatically.

PLOT: Will (Henry Cavill) is on a boating holiday in Spain with his family. After an argument with his father Martin (Bruce Willis) Will heads into town to clear his head. Upon his return Will discovers his family has been kidnapped by Israeli terrorists and the CIA is unwilling to help. Will has to return a McGuffin briefcase to the Israelis within twenty-four hours otherwise they will kill his family. Will blunders his way through Madrid and the entire film achieving nothing and looking incredibly confused. The Israelis are the enemy. The US government is the enemy. The Israelis are helpful yet simultaneously holding Will’s family hostage. There is a shoot out and Will is branded a hero despite doing absolutely nothing. END PLOT

The plot of The Cold Light of Day is basic and unoriginal however by the end of the film it had become overly complicated and I had no idea who was who as all the different people chasing Will blended into one indistinguishable group.

The dialogue was at times very clunky and although Bruce Willis got the one obligatory “fuck” his fake job title gets the biggest unintentional laugh of the year so far.

Henry Cavill is fine and has all the three characteristics a leading man should have:

1) Dude looks good with his top off and with a hat on

2) Dude looks good wet

3) Dude has a full head of hair

The problem is Will never becomes a fully fledged action hero as he essentially complains, mopes and literally cries his way through proceedings – at one stage when Will was thrown out of a car he landed in the foetal position and I honestly believed he was going to remain that way. I appreciate this is probably the most realistic way in which Joey Average would react but my god we were literally shouting at the screen for Will to man up and get on with it (there was no one else there)

Bruce Willis has nothing more than a cameo and Sigourney Weaver phones in an overly smug performance.  There is a surplus of extra nameless characters running around with Oscar Jaenada being the only familiar face.

The action takes place mostly at night and in the form of car chases but because it was so dark it was hard to keep track of what was happening. The set pieces are in no way slick and the film contains no standout moments with the action straying into silly territory far too often.

The camera work was too jumpy for its own good and the editing was noticeably choppy. The only decent shots were wide shots of Spain before the overly frantic action camera work took over.

The Cold Light of Day is not a bad film but it tried so hard to be gritty and real it ended up being a choppy melodramatic mess. If the director was more experienced or competent the film could very easily have been a decent 90min action flick but unfortunately The Cold Light of Day is nothing more than average and gets a 4.5/10

Like the bad pun I have been trying to end my review on the film should never have seen the cold light of day.