Falcon Rising (2014)

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

Director:

 Ernie Barbarash

Writer:

 Y.T. Parazi

Stars:

 Michael Jai White, Neal McDonough, Laila Ali |See full cast and crew »

FAVELA, the first installment in the CODENAME: FALCON franchise, introduces former marine John "Falcon" Chapman, a dark anti-hero driven by guilt and suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, who will destroy himself unless given something else to destroy - a useful weapon-of-last-resort for the U.S. State Department. When Chapman's sister is brutally attacked while on assignment in Brazil, Chapman flies into Sao Paulo to track down her assailants, quickly entering the city's seedy underbelly and discovering a world of drugs, the sex trade, corrupt cops, and organized crime syndicates battling for control.

So when I first saw the trailer for this movie I thought it was going to be your typical predictable Hollywood action flick. As we all do sometimes I resolved myself to just forgive anything corniness and just enjoy the movie. I sure was in for a surprise; this movie is anything but cliché -- it was a genuine rockbuster of a film that blew me away.

The fight scenes were really well done and even the acting was surprisingly good. There were maybe a couple small action film stereotypes but they were subdued to the point where they weren't insulting (e.g., ending fight scene at the docks against the bad guys, boss, etc.) In all I was highly entertained and I recommend the movie.