Falcon Rising (2014) Review

Verdict
4

Summary

If you’re a fan of old-school action movies and want outstanding fights, an interesting story and a great hero then put Falcon Rising on your “must see” list immediately.

Plot: John Chapman is an ex-marine in Brazil’s slums, battling the yakuza outfit who attacked his sister and left her for dead.

Review: I’ve been harping on for ages about the lack of decent old-school, R rated action movies these days; for the past few months we’ve been hearing rumblings that Michael Jai White’s new action movie Favela, (now retitled the less interesting Falcon Rising) was the return to the classic actioners of old.

So is it? Why yes it is, at last!

Michael Jai White’s John ‘Falcon’ Chapman is indeed the hero for the new age that is layered and more complex than your average action movie protagonist.

Suffering from heavy PTSD, he is literally suicidal and has lost the will to live. The film starts with him playing Russian Roulette with himself, so you might think Falcon Rising was going to be a dark and dreary film, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth.

Once Chapman’s sister is brutally attacked in the favelas of Brazil, he ‘rises’ to the challenge and searches for the people responsible.

Rather than having action for action’s sake, Chapman actually investigates his sister’s disappearance but just so happens to beat people up along the way as a last resort.

What surprised me was how fun the script was; although the tone is serious, we finally have a character that is witty again, with one-liners and a twinkle in the eye. We get a darkly funny scene in a supermarket at the beginning which is reminiscent of films like Cobra; I won’t give anything away but it’s suitably bad ass and made me laugh too.

There are also plenty of great fight scenes with the climax taking place at the docks in true 80’s action movie style. The fight scenes are choreographed to perfection by Larnell Stovall (Undisputed III) so there’s no shaky cam or CGI to be seen.

The final fight has Falcon take on three villains at once and MJW makes it look easy. Let me point out that he has never looked so jacked. He is HUGE in this movie and it makes all the action feel more authentic.

This is White’s best role since Undisputed II and Blood & Bone; although a man with issues, we are entirely on Falcon’s side and he still manages to be practically invincible. He’ll take on legions of goons and walks away with nary a scratch and I love action heroes like that.

I am a big fan of Neal McDonough and it’s nice to see him play an all-round good guy in this movie; I was waiting for him to turn out evil but refreshingly it didn’t happen.

There are certain plot twists you’ll see coming from a mile off and the main villain is a little underdeveloped, but that’s just me being nit-picky.

Lateef Crowder is an incredible martial artist and if you’re a fan of Undisputed III then you’ll recognize him immediately; he has some awesome fight scenes and nearly steals the movie.

Props must be given for actually filming in Brazil and as I’ve said before, it’s great to see something not filmed in miserable looking Eastern Europe.

Although you can tell the film doesn’t have a huge budget, director Ernie Barbarash (6 Bullets) has created one of the best action movies of the year. I hope it’s a success so we finally have ourselves the action franchise we’ve been waiting for.

Overall, if you’re a fan of old-school action movies and want outstanding fights, an interesting story and a great hero then put Falcon Rising on your “must see” list immediately.