Name: Retro Film Review: Hollow Point (1996)
Item: Hollow Point
Rating: 60
Author: @drax

(source: tmdb.org)

Most of the times viewers require some time before realising what kind of film are they watching. Such dilemmas won't exist in the case of Hollow Point, Canadian 1995 action comedy directed by Sydney J. Furie. In the very first scene luxurious gangland wedding turns into farce when Diane Noorwood (played by Tia Carrere), the bride, reveals herself as a FBI agent and tries to arrest her future father-in-law, Russian mafia leader Ivan Krezinsky (played by Andreas Apergis). The mobster manages to get away thanks to the intervention by Max Parrish (played by Thomas Ian Griffith), DEA agent who believes that the criminal at large could lead him to more precious prize in the form of Thomas Livingston (played by John Lithgow), money laundering tycoon who presides over Russian, Italian and Chinese mafias. Livingston is not amused and he sends eccentric hitman Garret Lawton (played by Donald Sutherland) to take care of this problem. After many misunderstandings Norwood and Parrish decide to join their forces in the hunt against Livingston, and after a while even Lawton, who had been swindled by his employer, decides to help them.

Scriptwriters Robert Geoffrion and James H. Stewart throw any semblance of realism at the very beginning of Hollow Point, but by doing so, they provide some refreshing detour from most of 1990s crime comedies that featured loser protagonists, hectolitres of blood and few little bags of heroin as world's most precious possessions. This film actually looks like it have been made in the age kinder and gentler than 1990s, and this shouldn't surprise anyone familiar with the works of Sydney J. Furie, filmmaker best known for 1960s musicals and slick spy thrillers. Furie, whose career in later decades wasn't anything to write home about, manages to bring back the spirit of light-hearted silliness from those days. Furie's competent direction is matched with the good acting, especially in the case of Lithgow and Sutherland - two character actors who use this opportunity to chew the scenery while playing unconventional criminals. Even the actors playing protagonists deliver performances above expectations – Tia Carrere is something more than bimbo, while Thomas Ian Griffith shows some comic talent as pill popping G-man. Hollow Point is not the film that would enter the annals of the Seventh Art, but all those who watch it would have more than hour and half of their lives filled with some solid entertainment.

RATING: 6/10 (++)

(Note: The text in its original form was posted in Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.movies.reviews on January 29th 2003)