Vanquish | |
---|---|
![]() Official promotional poster | |
Directed by | George Gallo |
Screenplay by |
|
Story by | Samuel Bartlett |
Produced by |
|
Starring | |
Cinematography | Anastos N. Michos |
Edited by | Yvan Gauthier |
Music by | Aldo Shllaku |
Production companies |
|
Distributed by | Lionsgate |
Release date |
|
Running time | 96 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Vanquish is a 2021 American action thriller film directed by George Gallo. The film stars Morgan Freeman and Ruby Rose.
Vanquish was released in the United States on April 16, 2021.
Retired disabled cop Damon (Morgan Freeman) forces Victoria (Ruby Rose), a former drug courier and his caretaker, to collect bags of money around the city during a single night by holding her daughter hostage. As the night progresses, Victoria finds out that at every stop point she makes, various enemies from her past attack her. Meanwhile, a cop breaks into Damon’s home, but Damon kills him.
At her final stop, Victoria is captured and taken to the home of the corrupt Governor. The Governor asks for Victoria’s help in taking down Damon, but Victoria refuses and kills the Governor instead.
Upon finally returning to Damon’s home, Victoria is reunited with her daughter. Then Damon explains that he had no need for the money that Victoria had collected; instead, this night was a part of his plan to eliminate all of Victoria’s enemies along with the corrupt Governor, thus cleaning the city of crime and corruption.
As the dawn breaks, Damon lures all the corrupted cops that had been working for the Governor into his home, where he blows himself up along with them. Meanwhile, Victoria and her daughter escape safely.
Principal photography occurred in September 2020 in Biloxi, Mississippi. [2] [3] Filming wrapped in January 2021. [4]
Vanquish was released in select theaters [5] starting from April 16, 2021, as well as on-demand and digital on April 23 and on DVD and Blu-ray April 27. [6]
Review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported that 5% of 64 critics gave the film a positive review, with an average rating of 3.10/10. [7] Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 22 out of 100 based on 14 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". [8]
Writing for RogerEbert.com , Peter Sobczynski described the film as “a rehash of genre cliches that is so dull, threadbare, and bereft of thrills that the one time that its one moment of genuine excitement comes when our heroine enters a bar where danger is allegedly afoot, and the television in the background is showing curling” and “the kind [of film] that almost makes the DTV drivel that Steven Seagal has been churning out for the last couple of decades seem focused and committed by comparison”, rating it only one out of four stars. [9]
Year | Award | Category | Recipient | Result | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
2022 | Golden Raspberry Awards | Worst Actress | Ruby Rose | Nominated | [10] |
Morgan Freeman is an American actor, producer, and narrator. Throughout a career spanning five decades and multiple film genres, he has received numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award as well as a nomination for a Tony Award. He has also been awarded the Kennedy Center Honor in 2008, an AFI Life Achievement Award in 2011, the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2012, and Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in 2018.
Allen Garfield was an American film and television actor.
The Glass House is a 2001 American psychological mystery thriller film directed by Daniel Sackheim and written by Wesley Strick. The film stars Leelee Sobieski, Diane Lane, Stellan Skarsgård, and Bruce Dern with supporting roles by Kathy Baker, Trevor Morgan, and Chris Noth. It tells the story of two siblings who go to live with friends of their parents as the oldest of the siblings starts to get suspicious of the family friends' patriarch.
Along Came a Spider is a 2001 American neo-noir psychological thriller film directed by Lee Tamahori. It is the second installment in the Alex Cross film series and a sequel to the 1997 film Kiss the Girls, with Morgan Freeman and Jay O. Sanders reprising their roles as detective Alex Cross and FBI-agent Kyle Craig. The screenplay by Marc Moss was adapted from the 1993 novel of the same title by James Patterson, but many of the key plot elements of the book were eliminated. The film was a box office success, although receiving mixed reviews from critics.
Mel Gibson is an American actor, director, and producer, who made his acting debut on the Australian television drama series The Sullivans (1976–1983). While a student at the National Institute of Dramatic Art in Sydney, he was given an uncredited role in I Never Promised You a Rose Garden and subsequently appeared as a leading actor in the micro budget surf drama Summer City. Gibson rose to prominence during the Australian New Wave cinema movement in the early 1980s, having appeared in his breakthrough role in George Miller's dystopian action film Mad Max (1979), portraying the eponymous hero. He reprised the role in its sequels, Mad Max 2 (1981) and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985). He appeared in Peter Weir's war drama Gallipoli (1981) and the romantic drama The Year of Living Dangerously (1982). Five years later he played Martin Riggs in the buddy cop action comedy Lethal Weapon alongside Danny Glover—a role he later reprised in its sequels Lethal Weapon 2 (1989), Lethal Weapon 3 (1992), and Lethal Weapon 4 (1998).
American actor Bruce Willis began his career in 1980 with an uncredited role in The First Deadly Sin. After guest-starring in a 1984 episode of Miami Vice, he appeared in the first episode of the 1985 revival of The Twilight Zone. Willis achieved fame starring in the ABC comedy-drama series Moonlighting (1985–1989), for which he received three Golden Globe nominations for Best Actor – Television Series Musical or Comedy and two Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series. In 1988, he starred as John McClane in Die Hard (1988), a film that spawned four sequels that earned him international recognition as an action hero.
Denzel Washington is an American actor known for his performance on stage and screen.
Nicolas Cage is an American actor and producer who began his acting career in 1981 with a role in the television pilot The Best of Times. The following year, Cage made his feature film acting debut in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, the second and last time he was credited by his birth name Nicolas Coppola; he later changed his name professionally to avoid allegations of nepotism due to his connection to the Coppola family. In 1983, Cage starred in a leading role in the teen romantic comedy Valley Girl alongside Deborah Foreman; the film was praised by critics and summarized by Rotten Tomatoes as a "goofy yet amiable film" with "engaging performances from its two leads."
American actor and producer Morgan Freeman has had a prolific career on film, television and on the stage. His film debut was as an uncredited character in the Sidney Lumet–directed drama The Pawnbroker in 1964. Freeman also made his stage debut in the same year by appearing in the musical Hello, Dolly! He followed this with further stage appearances in The Niggerlovers (1967), The Dozens (1969), Exhibition (1969), and the musical Purlie (1970–1971). He played various characters on the children's television series The Electric Company (1971–1977). Freeman subsequently appeared in the films Teachers in 1984, and Marie in 1985 before making his breakthrough with 1987's Street Smart. His role earned him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Two years later he appeared in war film Glory (1989), and starred as Hoke Coleburn in the comedy-drama Driving Miss Daisy (1989). Freeman won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for his performance in the latter and also earned a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor.
Olivia Kate Cooke is an English actress. In television, she has starred as Emma Decody in the thriller Bates Motel (2013–2017), Becky Sharp in the period drama Vanity Fair (2018), Alicent Hightower in the fantasy drama House of the Dragon (2022–present), and Sidonie Baker in the British spy thriller Slow Horses (2022-present).
American actor, director, and producer John Malkovich has appeared in more than 70 motion pictures. He started acting in the 1980s, appearing in the films Places in the Heart (1984) with Sally Field, Death of a Salesman (1985), The Glass Menagerie (1987), Empire of the Sun (1987), and Dangerous Liaisons (1988) with Glenn Close. His role in Places in the Heart earned him an Academy Award nomination. During the 1990s, he starred in the films Of Mice and Men (1992) as Lennie Small, In the Line of Fire (1993) as Mitch Leary, Beyond the Clouds (1995) as The Director, The Portrait of a Lady (1996) as Gilbert Osmond, Con Air (1997) as Cyrus "The Virus" Grissom, The Man in the Iron Mask (1998) as Athos, Being John Malkovich (1999) as John Horatio Malkovich, and The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (1999) as Charles VII. His role as Mitch Leary in In the Line of Fire earned him his second Academy Award nomination.
Clickbait is a drama miniseries, created by Tony Ayres and Christian White. Ayres serves as showrunner, while Brad Anderson, Emma Freeman, Ben Young, and Laura Besley are directors. It was released on Netflix on August 25, 2021.
Crown Vic is a 2019 American crime thriller film written and directed by Joel Souza, with Alec Baldwin having served as one of the producers, and stars Thomas Jane, Luke Kleintank, Gregg Bello, David Krumholtz, Bridget Moynahan, Scottie Thompson, and Josh Hopkins. The film focuses on the events during a night shift for veteran LAPD officer Ray Mandel and his trainee Nick Holland. The film's title derives from the Ford Crown Victoria, a car widely used by US police, which the main characters also use.
Out of Death is a 2021 American action thriller film directed by Mike Burns and starring Bruce Willis and Jaime King.
Wetlands is a 2017 American crime thriller film written and directed by Emanuele Della Valle and starring Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Heather Graham, Christopher McDonald, Reyna De Courcy and Jennifer Ehle. Michael Shamberg served as an executive producer of the film.
Karen is a 2021 American black horror crime-thriller film written and directed by Coke Daniels, and starring Taryn Manning, Cory Hardrict, Jasmine Burke, Roger Dorman, Brandon Sklenar, and Gregory Alan Williams. The title of the film is a reference to the American "Karen" stereotype. The film was critically panned upon release.
Tyger Tyger is a 2021 pandemic thriller written and directed by Kerry Mondragon. It stars Dylan Sprouse, Sam Quartin, Nekhebet Kum Juch, Thea Sofie Loch Naess, Craig Stark, Eden Anne Brolin, Alma Martinez, and Max Madsen. Filmed on location in Southern California’s Slab City and Bombay Beach, the film gathered notoriety because it portrays a mysterious pandemic, yet was filmed just before the COVID-19 pandemic begun.
Paradise Highway is a 2022 thriller film written and directed by Anna Gutto in her feature length debut and starring Juliette Binoche, Frank Grillo, and Morgan Freeman. An international co-production between the United States, Germany, and Switzerland, the film was released in the United States on July 29, 2022, by Lionsgate.
Ghosted is a 2023 American romantic action-adventure comedy film directed by Dexter Fletcher and written by the writing teams of Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, and Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers, from a story by Reese and Wernick. The film stars Chris Evans and Ana de Armas.
Smile is a 2022 American psychological supernatural horror film written and directed by Parker Finn in his feature directorial debut. Based on Finn's short film Laura Hasn't Slept (2020), it stars Sosie Bacon as a therapist who witnesses the bizarre suicide of a patient, then goes through increasingly disturbing and daunting experiences that lead her to believe she is experiencing something supernatural. It also stars Jessie T. Usher, Kyle Gallner, Kal Penn, and Rob Morgan, as well as Caitlin Stasey reprising her role from Laura Hasn't Slept.