Coincidentally, Paul used to be a major gangster in New Orleans. He accidentally killed crime lord Omar's (Bruce Willis) wife and daughter in a car bombing. Hearing that Paul is back in town, Omar pulls out all the stops to get Paul, despite warnings from his lieutenant Mark (Korean star Rain - Ninja Assassin) to leave Paul alone.
Paul drops Angela off at his old friend Sam's (John Cusack) place for safekeeping, and begins a one-man rampage to retrieve his daughter.
***
The Prince is a redneck version of Taken. Instead of former spy Liam Neeson, you have former gangster Jason Patric. With Bruce Willis and John Cusack as supporting cast, I had high hopes for this movie. Unfortunately, it's a B-movie dud.
I'm a Jason Patric fan. I loved Incognito, The Beast of War and The Lost Boys. Heck, I even liked Speed 2. Unfortunately, like Mark Dacascos and many other good actors, his career never really seemed to take off.
He's doing himself no favors by acting in movies like The Prince. I would also like to know who called in favors to get Bruce Willis and John Cusack to act in this clunker.
The movie starts off slowly. There are no quotable quips here, no ready-made tough-guy Internet memes. Taken quickly establishes Liam Neeson's bad ass credentials at the start of the movie, but The Prince keeps Paul's gangster past under wraps for a while.
This makes for a slow start to the movie, but it almost works when at about 30-minute mark, Paul gets recognized by an old foe. Paul had killed seven men in a shootout, and then had spared this man's life. He repays Paul by convincing his thug nephew (Beth's boyfriend) to tell Paul where Beth is. Along the way, he recounts Paul's bad-assery to his nephew (and of course the audience), making Paul sound like a Grammaton Cleric.
Aside from the tough-guy lines, Taken worked because Liam Neeson's tradecraft in tracking down and fighting the kidnappers, was interesting and believable. There is no equivalent detail in The Prince. The scene described above, is about as good as it gets.
Paul is not believably established as the one-man-army the movie says he is. Omar and Sam are also not well developed as characters. Worse is Angela. Angela doesn't seem to care much about Beth at the start, but then suddenly risks her safety to help Paul.
There's also an overall lack of style and polish to the whole movie. The visuals are far from cinematic (the best-looking scenes are at the start - Paul working in his garage) and often look drab. Not purposefully grungy, just student-film uninspired. Just like the gun fights and car chase (singular) - plain boring, bordering on ridiculous.
IMDB estimates the budget at $18 million. That sounds about right. Director Brian A Miller, and writers Andre Fabrizio and Jeremy Passmore, deserve their obscurity.
As a joke, I texted a movie-buff friend, asking him if I should watch Denzel (his movie The Equalizer opened on the same day) or Jason Patric. He knew about The Equalizer, but had no idea that there was a Jason Patric movie showing in the cineplexes. I don't blame him.
P.S. There's a scene where Paul checks out an unloaded submachine gun, working the mechanism, all the while pointing the gun at Angela. That's a safety no-no, even with an unloaded gun. Paul is supposed to be a crude gangster, but he is also supposed to be ex-military. This is the kind of thing that the army drills into you to not do. Paul also shoots from the hip (at least some of the time), another thing that the army trains you to not do.
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