We all like Danny Trejo. He's one of a kind. With his rugged mug he can be menacing, frightening, lovable and funny. In this outing, he gets off to a good start, even having some pretty good lines to spout. True, it's formula action, with, as usual in these films, lots of plot holes and contrived situations. As usual we have the good guy with serious problems, the bad guy who just can't get any badder, the child you know will end up being the bad guy's hostage. In this case they went overboard and threw in two hostages. And speaking of bad guys, who can better represent bad than Jonathan Banks? When he looks at you, you tremble. They even managed to work in a bridge in downtown LA. That's, as Tevye would say, "Tradition". Every action flick in LA has to have some scenes on, around and under one of the bridges. As soon as I saw the city hall in the background, I told my wife to watch for the bridge scene and we weren't disappointed. Maybe it's something in the city charter that any action film made in LA County has to have some scenes including one of the bridges over the LA River, or in the actual riverbed, or both. So far so good. They missed the abandoned factory shootout, but on a budget of $3,000,000 you can't have everything. Where this film falls apart — make that, where this film completely breaks down, is when a fully armored SWAT team with assault weapons hits an apartment and two men, one being Mr. Banks hitting on seventy, armed with two pistols, kill each and every one of the SWAT team plus a couple of other detectives with only Danny Trejo. escaping, we simply broke down in laughter. From there it was downhill the rest of the way, with the usual standoff and bittersweet ending. This started off as one of Mr. Trejo's better outings, but something got lost in the translation.

Writer & director Nick Lyon's "Bullet" looks like a Nicolas Cage crime thriller without Nicolas Cage. Instead, producer Robert Rodriguez cast likable veteran character actor Danny Trejo as eponymous LAPD detective Frank 'Bullet' Marasco. Marasco has to rescue his adolescent grandson from a ruthless, trigger-happy, cartel chieftain, Carlito Kane (seasoned heavy Jonathan Banks of "Beverly Hills Cop") and his loquacious Teutonic sidekick Kruger (Torsten Voges of "The Lords of Salem") who like to wave their guns around and threaten our rugged hero. If you have any doubts that Carlito is a hopeless dastard, you won't after he beats a small-time drug dealer to death with a golf club. When our hero isn't struggling to recover his grandson, Mario (Kyle Villalovos) he has to prove to his peers that he did not murder three fellow police officers as well as help his junkie daughter Vanessa (Tinsel Korey) kick a narcotics habit. Ironically enough, the daughter had cleaned up her act and then the villains snatched her son and she reverted to her bad ways. Carlito grabbed Marasco's grandson because it was Marasco's testimony that prompted Manuel's conviction.Lyon and three co-scribes, Ron Peer of "Goodbye Lover," rookie writers Byron Lester and Matthew Joynes, recycle all the usual clichés in this contrived crime thriller. Our hero turns in his badge, like John Wayne did in "McQ," goes out and gets arms from the underworld type, and metes out vigilante justice that seals the fate of several villains. Nevertheless, despite its low-budget look and formulaic plotting, "Bullet" isn't bad for a bullet-riddled kidnap & extortion thriller. Banks' bald-headed hood orders the abduction of the daughter of California Governor Johnson (John Savage of "The Thin Red Line") so Kane can compel the state's chief executive officer to release his notorious son, Manuel Kane (Eric Etebari of "2 Fast & 2 Furious"), who is scheduled to die by lethal injection. Lyon orchestrates several interesting but obstreperous shootouts and some of the dialogue is actually memorable. The German villain Kruger has some funny lines, too. Mind you, "Bullet" is nothing special, but a robust cast and a trim 87-minute running time compensate for the familiar nature of the plot.

This movie will keep you interested only if you are the action lover. There's actually nothing new in the story. But one can always watch it as a time pass action flick. It's a revenge story without intense action and thrill. Although the movie is a cheap one, it doesn't look that way. The storytelling feels a bit messy at some parts but the movie is pleasant because of it's simplicity. Both the hero job and villain job are okay and it's what needed for an action movie. Visually, the movie is quite peaceful. For me, it was just an average movie, nothing more, nothing less. There are lot better movies than this, and you won't lose anything if you miss it.

Good cop gets accused of being a bad cop, good cop gets angry, hands in badge, goes out on his own and gets all the bad guys, including the really bad guy (naturally, he goes down last), dodging all the bullets and saving the day (and his nephew). Heard that one before? I'm sure you have. So have I. Been there, done that.Sometimes I get the feeling that the gun manufacturers in the USA finance movies just to show off their arsenal of weapons - especially when there's a scene in the back of a low-dive bar where all sorts of weapons are on display, shining like diamonds, for the good cop to choose from. I think the only smart phrase in the whole movie is when good cop meets naughty daughter at the detox center and addresses the recovering folks: "Remember, work the steps because the elevator is broken". Every other scene and piece of dialogue is deja vu all over again. No smart twists in the plot, nothing. Pity, because I like Danny Trejo - his ragged looks, his style, the characters he portrays. I just think he stands out more in supporting roles than as the man in charge of operations.