THE WEAPON Review: Tony Schiena’s Directorial Debut, Unlocked And Unloaded
The Weapon is currently available on Digital and On Demand, and will release on DVD beginning March 28.
To date, I’ve only had the chance to see three films featuring actor Tony Schiena, of which two he didn’t direct. I enjoyed both of those in the years since then, with the third in question currently being his directorial debut recently released out of Lionsgate’s Grindstone label titled The Weapon – a title that would easily stand out to a fan of the film’s intended genre.
The film is carried by a mostly talented cast with solid performances, coupled with a brooding tone and several brutal, competently shot action sequences with Schiena front and center. And that’s about it, really. The rest of the film’s floundering falls on poorly developed characters, meandering plot progression, and a contrived romantic side story that serves no real purpose in the film’s flawed and unengaging first half of the film. I also think it’s worth asking just why it is the lead actor of our story is nowhere to be seen on the poster except for his name. That’s not a dunk on the actors shown, but still, it’s nonsensical to market a direct-to-home release film without any imagery of its title star. Anyway, moving on…
Frankly, I long forgot what the story was after I shared the trailer, so for what it was worth, I basically went in blind. In a nutshell, Schiena plays Dallas, a maverick outlaw on a mission to dispense his own brand of justice, the endgame to which we do know not yet. All we know so far is that it involves a montage of him getting physically interrogated by a biker gang, coupled with shots of him beating the piss out of dude with a helmet, raiding a meth lab and rescuing damsels being trafficked and in some cases imprisoned until they die. It also involves a woman he escapes with who somehow happens to be connected to him in a scene we later catch between her and an enigmatic blind character named Blue, played by Cuba Gooding Jr.
Whatever the case, Dallas finds himself leaving more bodies in his wake including a dirty detective who he ties to a truck and sets ablaze, all while being chased and hunted by a U.S. marshall played by Sean Patrick Flanery. We later learn that a crime boss named Lars, played by Richard Grieco has kidnapped Dallas’s girlfriend and Dallas has to battle his way through a few more betrayals before he can kill some more bad guys and get the girl, and maybe possibly fulfill whatever mission he’s on that circles back to a tragic incident from his childhood.
And that’s really all I can muster up to divulge without spoiling too much or losing total interest in writing about this cumbersome action flick. The opening scene in which Dallas is interrogated by a biker gang leader played by Chuck Zito can’t decide of Jack Kesy’s henchman character wants to hit our hero using left or right crosses is a total eyesore. It made me skeptical at first, but I didn’t wanna judge the film right then as it looked like things were picking up. Lo and behold, they simply weren’t.
I tapered off into a coma a few times in the last twenty or thirty minutes, but not before catching as much as I needed to so as to avoid trying to endure this insufferable film for another eighty minutes. I get what Schiena and screenwriter Michael Caissie tried to accomplish with this one, but with only a handful of palatable performances and some action scene appetizers in between all the frills to cohese things, suffice it to say, The Weapon is a real dud. Try Julius Nasso’s Darc or Philippe Martinez’s 2004 JCVD-led Wake Of Death to hold you over, and let’s hope Schiena will have better luck on the next one.
Native New Yorker. Lover of all things pizza, chocolate, pets, and good friends. Karaoke hero. Left of center. Survivor. Fond supporter of cult, obscure and independent cinema - especially fond of Asian movies and global action cinema. Author of the bi-weekly Hit List. Founder and editor of Film Combat Syndicate. Still, very much, only human.
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