Tokarev   Starring: Nicolas Cage Distributor: Anchor Bay Entertainment RRP: £15.99 ABD1227 Certificate: 15 Release Date: 22 September 2014

Paul Maguire seems to be leading a dull, if successful, life as an owner of a construction company. The loves of his life are his wife and teenage daughter. While out to dinner one evening, three men break into his home and kidnap his daughter. Hell bent on revenge, and willing to do anything to recover her, Maguire goes after the kidnappers, which reveals that he is in fact a reformed criminal with a violent past...

Tokarev (2014. 1 hr, 34 min, 02 sec) is a thriller, directed by Paco Cabezas, from a script by Jim Agnew and Sean Keller.

It’s not a bad film, but neither is it particularly a memorable one. The premise, with a few tweaks has already been used in the superior Taken (2008) as well as a host of ‘B’ movies; also the script does not play to the casts acting strengths.

Having gone through this traumatic experience, Maguire goes on a rampage, which should have been the jumping off point for some Nicholas Cage (Maguire) lunacy; there are moments, but not really enough. Similar problems also seen in Peter Stormare’s (Francis O'Connell) and Danny Glover’s (Det. Peter St. John) performances; good actors with a script which could have been so much more.

By a series of flashbacks it soon becomes clear that Maguire’s criminal past may not be concluded as he had hoped. The plot unfurls through a number of uber violent sequences and tough men speaking toughly, as Maguire turns to some of his old criminal friends to help get back at the men who took his daughter.

The two strengths of the film are the cinematography of Andrzej Sekula, who worked with Tarantino on Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, however this current film is definitely not so stylised as those two, preferring to move the colour palette from naturalistic to a more darker mode when Maguire is going about hurting and killing people in the cities sleaze pits.

The PR company only provided a screener so the picture was a little fuzzy, at the beginning, from encoding the original, which was digitally filmed. It did settle down and hopefully is not representative of the finish disc. There is no indication on either the disc or the PR blurb as to possible extras. The film is presented with a 1.78:1 aspect ratio and a DD 2.0 stereo audio track; the finished product should also sport a DD 5.1 track.

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Charles Packer