Sean Vetter (Vin Diesel) and Demetrius Hicks (Larenz Tate) are part of a DEA team sent to join Mexican police to take down drug lord Memo Lucero. Memo is captured and brought back to the US. A mysterious new player Diablo is taking over Memo's territory and killing his men. Diablo's men kill Sean's wife (Jacqueline Obradors) in a failed assassination attempt. He goes to seek revenge for his dead wife. They start investigating Hollywood Jack (Timothy Olyphant).It's a crime melodrama. There is a good deal of overacting. The story has several cliché plots jam together. Vin Diesel tries to do a lot. I don't blame him because that's the way it's written. He's a super cop. He's a happy street-wise family man. He's a grieving widow. He's a gangster thug avenging cop. He's too much and the movie suffers. It feels like a lot of poser acting. It doesn't get the benefit of gritty realism. There are quite a bit of gun action but it's not fun or exciting. This movie is going for a lot and probably too much. Around the halfway point, I stop caring about this movie.

Wow! This movie actually made me shed a tear, and with me that is rare. I probably started to leak because I've been in a similar situation as Sean. I've been to hell and back a few times, and a part of me is still there and always will be.The sad part really got to me, and that's a big plus. That is a sign that the people who made this movie have done their job properly. The start was great. To use my famous action-curve, it started out pretty high and it went a little down to push the sadness and the storyline on us, and then it went up, up and away with some minor detours down. In other words, it was great.The acting was, as expected with Mark Vincent (aka Vin Diesel), freaking awesome! He is, always have been and always will be one of my favorite actors. Now Vin may have done a perfect job, but he wasn't the only one with acting skills out there. Larenz Tate and that Olyphant-guy who played Hollywood Jack were great as well. They made me believe it. And that is always a good sign in this business.Now, let's talk ending. Without giving anything away, I can say, honestly, that I was genuinely surprised at the ending. First I was a bit confused with the handcuffs, I was thinking about what would happen next, and he turned his back and I was genuinely disappointed, disappointed for 2 seconds give or take. I did not see that one coming! Not at all! And I seriously see EVERYTHING before they come! OK, to sum it up. It had everything, even a few laughs appeared, and not on the screen. So, it was perfect, give or take. Simply perfect. Which means it gets a perfect 10 out of 10 stars from me. I also recommend you to see it, I really do. I would almost say this is a must-see movie.Until next time, Ciao! Buenas noches! Bonsoir! Good night! Shevy

A pathetic macho-man flick.The woman who played Diesel's wife was so cloyingly clingy, she seemed like a roll of clingwrap stuck to duct tape, wrapped around the grunting bald guy. Diesel spoke to her in honey dripping, endearing terms and each of them focused on each other as if neither of them had sex in decades and had massive doses of Viagra. Okay - we get it - Vin Diesel is not gay.They can't make eye contact without having simultaneous mutual orgasms. She's not even that hot and he's..well...bald and lumpy. Diesel walked around in a tight wife beater A-shirt and sported male boobs - what's next - male camel toe?? Diesel's friends seemed seedier than the folks you'd see in a urine-splashed inner city subway station rolled up with a bottle of Muscatel. The villain was the same guy who plays "The Most Interesting Man in the World" for the Dos Equis beer commercials. Too funny.Diesel grunts and punches his way through a predictable juvenile bore fest.

A Man Apart starts in Mexico where the DEA raid a bar & capture drug lord Memo Lucero (Geno Silva), back in the US & Memo Lucero is looking to spend the rest of his life behind bars. However removing one drug lord just means another can take his place, the mysterious Diablo picks up where Lucero left off & is even more brutal & unforgiving as he tries to have DEA agent Sean Vetter (Vin Diesel) killed but only ends up wounding him & killing his wife Stacy (Jacqueline Obradors) which makes Vetter very, very angry & out for revenge. Vetter sets his sights on Diablo as the drug lord plans to flood California with cocaine & those who were involved in killing his wife...This American German co-production was directed by F. Gary Gray & is a gritty revenge thriller in the same vein as Man on Fire (2004) which were presumably shot at the same time, to be honest while A Man Apert is alright overall I thought it was rather forgettable. There's nothing in the script that we haven't seen countless times before, some cop annoys some bad guy who kills a member of his family/partner/friend for revenge & then in turn the hero himself then seeks revenge. The plot is fairly standard stuff about powerful Mexican drug lords & those who fight them, however the script is rather rather weak & there's a puzzling climax where the identity of the mysterious Diablo is never really revealed despite the entire film being about him. Was it all a set-up to get Memo out of prison? If so the script failed to mention it, was Diablo still alive at the end? Who knows, not the audience that's for sure. I mean just who the hell was this Diablo? Why did he try to kill Sean Vetter when it was Memo who had a grudge against him? Why not try to kill the DEA agents? It feels like A Man Part was either badly written, it lost something from script to screen or New Line Cinema cut large chunks of narrative out. At one hour & forty five minutes long A Man Apart is quite slow at times & with a wimpy climax that doesn't really bring closure to anything & even ditches the traditional fight between the hero & villain for supremacy I find it hard to see just who A Man Apart was made for.Another disappointing aspect of A Man Apart is the action, or to be more accurate the lack of it. Sure there's a couple of by-the-numbers shoot-outs, an exploding & a few fights but it's pretty low key stuff. I am sure the decision to keep it low key & gritty was deliberate but it just makes for a forgettable film all round. New Line Cinema was forced to change the title to A Man Apart from El Diablo as Blizzard threatened to sue as one of their popular games was already called El Diablo & they didn't want this below average film tarnishing their game or ruining any potential future film deals or adaptations.With a supposed fairly modest budget of about $36,000,000 I now know why there's a lack of decent action, there wasn't enough money to pay for it. The acting is alright, Vin Diesel can't act but is a decent action star although there's not much action here.A Man Apart is a bit of a uninspired mess that doesn't quite know if it wants to be a serious thriller or an all out action film but satisfies as neither, the plot isn't that clear & answers just lead to more questions & the action is also surprisingly tame & understated. Overall it's not a terrible film but not one that I particularly enjoyed all that much.