Sadly Over-hyped

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

I just bought this tonight in a budget bin for 3.99, so I guess this was to be expected. I love a good action movie (i.e. Steven Seagal's early stuff), and this looked like it might be just as good. Well I was wrong. I spent most of my time fast forwarding to find the good parts, of which there were very few. Like a few reviewers have said, this could have been a great film, but the production was just too weak, and the formula too clichéd. It needed something, although I do not know what. As for the clichéd formula, it revolves around a crooked general and a crooked police chief, and the great Marine who is out for truth and justice, who is held down to the very end, after which a few bullets took care of what could have been taken care of in fifteen minutes versus a one-hundred minute running time. If you want to see it, rent it, but do not buy it, at least when you rent it you can get rid of it easier.

What can be said about this movie apart from what can be inferred from the summary? You can't except anything from it if you don't watch it with a bunch of friends on a late Friday night. Its not so unintentional humour is at times off the scales. The acting isn't great, only John Voigt's performance delivers, at times it's even awkward, the storyline doesn't make any sense at all and the characters are for most of the part pathetic. All of this doesn't really matter because this lack of seriousness is taken to the max in many scenes with hilarious comedy. A fine example of what producers can come up to between big pictures filming not just only for the bucks but for the fun. Don't try to understand this, just enjoy it. Not to be overlooked.

Hilary Rodham Clinton probably will skip "Barb Wire" director David Glenn Hogan's action epic "Most Wanted," a clever but contrived conspiracy thriller about the assassination of a fictitious First Lady. Wayans plays rogue Marine Gunnery Sergeant James Anthony Dunn whose own superior officer frames him for gunning the first lady down. Actress Jill Hennessey appears as Dr. Victoria Constantini, a Zapruder style eye witness who videotapes the real assassins that shot the President's wife. Before long Constantini finds herself on the lam with Dunn. Despite its clearly imitative nature and its wholly disposable plot, "Most Wanted" contains enough okay action scenes to make the grade. Nevertheless, this standard issue shoot'em up is definitely not the best work of actor/writer Keenen Ivory Wayans. He was more fun in his 1994 action comedy "Low Down Dirty Shame" with Jada Pinkett.Not only does Wayans star in "Most Wanted," but he also penned the screenplay. Wayans cobbles together scenes from every major action flick to create his own film. Shrewdly, he forges a plot around a string of surefire movie scenes that he has rewritten carefully. In the opening scene, Sgt. Dunn refuses to shoot an innocent shepherd boy during Operation Desert Storm. Sgt. Dunn's Commanding Officer threatens to shoot him on site for disobeying an order. They struggle. During the struggle, the officer's gun discharges accidentally and the officer dies from a gunshot wound. Dunn receives the death sentence for murder. During his bus ride to Fort Leavenworth, Dunn is rescued by a super secret anti-terrorist military unit. An evil, redneck Gen. Adam Woodward, alias Lt. Col. Grant Casey (Jon Voight of "Midnight Cowboy") gives Dunn the option to either join his group or die. Reluctantly, Dunn agrees to join and finds himself the designated hitter in an assassination attempt.The unit has targeted shady biochemical mogul Donald Bickhart (Robert Culp of "Hickey and Boggs). At the VA Hospital where Bickhart is greeting the First Lady, Dunn is set up. Gen. Woodward's henchmen kill the First Lady and frame him. Now, the Los Angeles Police Department as well as Woodward's gunmen pursue Dunn. Our wrongly accused hero spends the rest of the movie trying to exonerate himself. The filmmakers pad the action out with a superfluous subplot involving the Central Intelligence Agency. C.I.A. Deputy Director Kenny Rackmill (Paul Sorvino of "Goodfellas") smells a cover-up. He is suspicious because Dunn's description as the assassin was confirmed far too quickly. Dunn calls in the agency, but the C.I.A. refuses to help him until he can find scoop some poop on Gen. Woodward. Meanwhile, Constantini doesn't totally believe Dunn, even after he saves her life from a bomb planted in her house.Director David Glenn Hogan and Wayans have crafted a Kennedy style conspiracy thriller. The heroic sergeant that Wayans plays is the classic loner with either no family or no friends. He qualifies as the ideal choice for the assassin as well as the fall guy. The first scene borrows from the Sylvester Stallone shoot'em up "The Specialist" (1994)" with Sharon Stone. The bus escape scene is straight out of Brett Ratner's "Money Talks" with Chris Tucker. The ebony and ivory combo of an African-American hero and a white heroine recalls the chaste "Pelican Brief" with Denzel Washington and Julia Roberts. Like "The Pelican Brief," Wayans and Hennessy never get the hots for each other and play hide the salami. "Most Wanted" has a prefabricated, trace-the-numbers storyline that leaves little doubt about where the action is leading the characters. There are some really dumb scenes, too. After the authorities have identified Dunn, he strolls into a public library to use a computer. The Dunn character wanders through half of the action without a disguise. In the most original scene, half of L.A. chases Dunn onto a freeway in a Frank Capra like foot chase. Sadly, Keenen Ivory Wayans wants to become the black equivalent of Stallone's Rambo character. He makes a suitable, straight-forward hero, but he's far too dull. Mario Van Peebles would have been a better choice for Dunn. Wayans plays a squeaky clean hero. The reverse occurs when the antagonists are involved. Enjoying a villainous career comeback since "Mission Impossible," Jon Voight conjures up a full-blown portrait of evil. As Gen. Woodward, Voight is a ruthless adversary. Paul Sorvino lends his considerable screen presence as the spy chief to the C.I.A. subplot as does Eric Roberts as his aide. "Most Wanted" squanders both Sorvino and Roberts. "Miami Vice" supporting actor John Diehl shows up in yet another cameo as a police captain. Luscious actress Jill Hennessy is sexy enough, but she never really proves herself either as a heroine or a hot date."Most Wanted" emerges as brisk, harmless action fodder. Don't dwell on its improbable plot if you want to enjoy it for the mindless fodder that it is. Just sit back and get a kick out of its adrenalin antics. The pizza scene is hilarious and the dialogue on the prison bus is a hoot! Wayans appears to have had the most fun writing in the scene where dozens of blacks with shaven heads crowd the scenes. Another funny moment occurs when a guard mistakes Dunn for another talk-show host and asks for his autograph. "Most Wanted" plays it safe, confining itself to familiar territory, doing exactly what you expect for a thriller of its caliber, and delivering the usual quota of thrills, chills, and spills without offense of any kind. Composer Paul Buckmaster endorses the action with a flavorful musical score, and "Set It Off" lenser Marc Reshovky's murky photography captures the element of paranoia that suffuses this saga.

**SPOILERS** Ridiculously inept action movie with funny-man Keenen Ivory Wayans playing on the lamb and on the run escaped murderer James Dunn who was set up to take the rap for the assassination of the First lady, Donna Cherry, of the United States.Dunn who was sentenced to be executed by an army court-martial for killing his superior officer, who ordered him to shoot a 10 year-old Iraqi boy, during the Gulf War is rescued as he's being sent to Levenworth Prisons death row. Dunn is to be recruited by this gong-ho and very unstable nut-job Gen. Woodward, Jon Voight,in a complicated scheme to off big time pharmaceutical businessman Donald Bickhart.Robert Culp. Being the designated hit-man in this covert operation Dunn never gets off a shot as the First Lady is gunned down by an unknown gunman and he ends up being accused of her murder.On the run with his face plastered all over the newspapers and on TV Dunn seems top have no trouble at all eluding the police and US Army. kidnapping hospital administrator Dr. Victoria Constantini, Jill Hennessy, Dunn has his ace in the hole that can prove his innocence, her video tape of the assassination. It's then that he stupidly hands the tape over to a reporter who's even more nuts then he is by not bothering to make a copy of it and then having the tape turned over to Gen. Woodward! The every person who set Dunn up and more then anything else in the world wan't him dead!The movie "Most Wanted" get more and more outrageous as it goes along with Dunn on the run and not bothering to even keep out of sight with the police army CIA FBI with even almost half the population of L.A is out looking for him with a 10 million dollar reward on his head. With the help of a first very reluctant Victoria Dunn tracks down the reason for the First Ladies murder to non-other then Bickhart, the person he was to assassinate. Bickhart together with Gen. Woopdword was involved in some kind of secret experiment on the men of the 82nd Air-Borne division during the Gulf War that had almost all of them end up either dead or hospitalized for life. The First Lady a champion for veterans causes was about to expose this fiendish experiment to the public and had to be silenced and Dunn, a perfect pasty, was the one picked to be framed for her murder.If he didn't have enough trouble already Dunn who thought that CIA Deputy Director Rackmill, Paul Sorvino, was on his side in this whole mess found out later to his, but nobody else's, surprise that he wasn't. Rockmill, like Gen. Woodward, was setting the guy up in order to get the 10 dollar million reward, offered by Bickhart, for his capture dead or alive. Dunn for his part being very experienced in electronics explosives and all around covert activities ,including the unique ability of being able to fool people to who he is without even having a disguise on , gets to the bottom of what Gen. Woodward & Bickhart are up to. It's then that he plays them off against each others without them even knowing it. By the time the movie is finally over with about as much explosions car chases and all around destruction that you would see in half a dozen of these type of mindless actions flicks Dunn or Keenen Ivory Wayans is off to the races with him free as a bird. Dunn is no longer wanted by him being falsely reported reported on the TV news as being captured as executed by the government. I could only hope that some other innocent pasty, like Dunn, wasn't the one who took his place in Levenwoths execution chamber.