A cop and his partner manage to infiltrate a crime boss's warehouse; he isn't taken down right away and he attempts to up the ante; only to have several laser scopes pointed at him. Case done and closed right? Wrong! They don't have enough evidence and he gets to walk. That doesn't stop him from deciding to get some revenge by taking out the main character's wife – incidentally she is pregnant. The cop suddenly gets a vigilante streak and points his gun at the criminal; but finally stands down at the words of his partner. This doesn't stop him from turning around and deciding to take matters into his own hands and kill the antagonist's brother. This sets him up on a one way trip to a state correctional facility. Incidentally it's the same location as the antagonist.The overseer of the state correctional facility is pretty straight forward in wanting to be this ex-cop's best friend. He wants to go so far as helping him pull strings around the facility. The cop keeps an open mind on it, but has other plans as he starts to kill off the antagonist's minions and the antagonist himself.The movie plays heavily on the fact that this cop is out for revenge and will go through whatever punishment and beatings are necessary to get the job done. He is beaten several times over, and it still doesn't get the message through that he should know his place. Instead he comes back for more revenge until the whole prison finally erupts into a riot due to his meddling. The movie does wrap things up nicely and that is that.Is the movie worth a watch? Absolutely. The RedBox DVD which I watched, included two special commentaries of note. The first goes into detail about the film location being haunted. The second goes into detail about the behind the scenes moments of "Vendetta". Interesting to note that the main director was female and her focus was the numerous killings in this movie; there were well over forty-seven deaths before the movie ends. Not only is this a strange change of pace for this gender role, but the movie also takes a strange turn when the antagonist's actor is actually seen as quite friendly and humorous. The behind the scenes makes this DVD all the more enjoyable.Originally posted to Orion Age (http://www.orionphysics.com/? p=9863).

Wilhelm Scream. You know the one. It's been in movies since the days of black and white westerns. It's the same scream ol' Captain Wilhelm belted out when his leg was impaled by an Apache arrow. Sadly you have to wait almost 2 hours to hear it, but when you do you'll stop everything else to watch as a guy does a horizontal 720 from a barely landed weak hand punch. Pathetic.Seriously, worst scene in the movie; when a "hardened", veteran cop continues to fire his gun after the slide has locked in place, then looks at it like "oh, that's why it won't shoot.". Terrible. Just terrible.

I've not seen any of the WWE Studios films, so I don't know how much of an impact WWE has have on the film and creative license, but, I'm sure there is some. The casting and acting was great. Dean Cain was really believable. Michael Eklund as Warden Snyder really irritated the hell out of me but that's how the warden was supposed to be portrayed, so job well done.Some of the dialogue was a little too proper but the fighting scenes were well choreographed. The soundtrack was almost non-stop and silence would have helped built up tension and or shock in some of the scenes.It wasn't a perfect flick which, IMO, would have been too boring and forgettable, maybe even cliché, but, gave it a modern day "grind house" feel to the picture. I would really like to see The Soska Twins do a b/w film noir piece.

While having distinct cast with Dean Cain and Paul Wight (Big Show) Vendetta feels terribly mundane. It follows a straightforward plot of a renegade cop who does everything he can to exact his revenge. The main problem isn't the plot itself, but how the execution falters in almost every action sequences. It just looks amateurish as punches and kicks barely land, while the choreography consists of random flailing or pushing. The poor presentation is incompatible with the gritty mood it tries to build and the film ends up running around in circle like the on-screen inmate.Mason (Dean Cain) is a detective in feud with crime mogul Victor (Paul Wight). After shoddy first act where development feels forced, Mason deliberately incarcerates himself to the same prison Victor does time. The film repeats this hardened cop gimmick too much, almost the entire movie portrays him fighting and outsmarting Victor and the corrupt warden. This get repetitive very fast as events happen with little to no build up.At some points the screenplay almost literally repeats itself by rehearsing the same scene, I even wondered whether this wasn't already done fifteen minutes ago. There's no intelligent move on Mason's part, honestly his plan relies far heavily on coincidence and the others' stupidity. Dean Cain is stuck on his Batman impression with overdose of angst while Paul Wight is just not convincing on the antagonist role aside from his large physique.The weakest link must be the lackluster cinematography, Vendetta's action is timid and feeble. Motions look awkward and editing is jittery, it resembles WWE match with fake blood. Character would swing and miss, yet his enemy would fall, in the wrong way. Gun effect is poor as well, as though they plaster flash effect with lots of strawberry jam filled prosthetic for blood substitution.None of the action looks genuine. With good presentation Vendetta could've been a decent action, but seeing it's hampered by obvious flaws, it'd be better to serve your time somewhere else.