A Man Apart (2003)

Load of rubbish!!

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

A Man Apart is a more gritty, more realistic type of film than leading man Vin Diesel usually participates in. Vin Diesel is a former LA gangbanger that is a top undercover DEA agent. When a big bust headed by Diesel is successful in bringing down a Cartel drug lord, it is not without repercussions. In retaliation, The Cartel sends shooters to Vin Diesel's crib. Of course they all end up in body bags, but not without murdering his wife. This has Vin Diesel on a all out roid rage until the film's conclusion. He enlists the help of his partner and a homie from the hood, Big Sexy to avenge his wife's death. Vin Diesel now operates on both sides of the law to achieve his means of street justice and vengeance. It seems that this film was meant to be more of dramatic piece than one as action driven as this is. Vin Diesel is cool, but he lacks range as an actor. However, he is real good at kicking ass and acting hard at all times. His support cast is pretty strong though and the film itself is pretty quick paced, action packed and is pretty entertaining. A Man Apart may have some flaws and Vin did not possess the acting chops to play a character that is not a superhero, but otherwise the film is fairly cohesive and well done.

I guessed his wife was going to die as soon as he said he had one. I also guessed who Diablo was. I really am tired of movies where you can tell what is going to happen over an hour before it does and you just sit there saying, "How dumb can that character be to not know who Diablo is?" and "Why would you hold a conference where all of the other 'undercover people' are present and celebrating the arrest of a drug king pin?" Drug king pins tend to know what's going on outside of jail- even more so the ones in films for some reason.Vin Diesel is his usual action self in this, so hard to see a wider range of acting in there. Angry guy out for revenge and speeding in cars/space ships/ cars is pretty much every character Vin Diesel plays. As for everyone else, seems they were just thrown in for eye candy and because they looked foreign (there were your standard actors who played bad guys- again formulaic). I don't think I'll be watching it again.

A to-the-point film of a DEA Agent, Sean Vetter, (Vin Diesel) trying to hunt down those responsible for the death of his wife.In order to do this he must get the information he needs from an imprisoned drug baron named Memo Lucero (Geno Silva), who he had captured.But unknown to Vetter, Memo has an agenda of his own...I first saw Diesel in Pitch Black. From then onwards I watched any film of his I could find. Namely: XXX, The Knockaround Guys, Chronicles Of Riddick and The Pacifier.His acting in all these movies is superb. Any if you are a big fan of his, add all the above movies including this one to your DVD collection.In A Man Apart, Diesel plays his most emotionally intense role. Complementing him in the film is veteran actor Juan Fernández who plays the drug baron Memo Lucero. Not to forget to mention the excellent Timothy Olyphant.Verdict 10/10

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.