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Released By: Anchor Bay
Released On: 01/10/2012
Director: William Kaufman
Cast: Sean Patrick Flanery, Tom Berenger, Costas Mandylor, Johnny Strong, Method Man
The Film:
As a buddy-cop action flick that should be an awesome nod to the Cannon films of the 80's, Sinners and Saints falls flat before hitting the mark in one area. Actually, it's more like two areas if you count some disjointed writing and stylistic choices in direction, but mainly one; the lead. And like a lousy ending to a good flick, a poor choice in lead actor can drive a film into the dirt.
Johnny Strong. Sheeit. Even the name is the equivalent of a plywood mansion front, penny-nailed to a construction office trailer. You may remember him from Black Hawk Down and The Fast And The Furious. I sure as hell don't. He is TERRIBLE. Fortunately, he does drift back and forth across the line that divides “Bad†and “So Bad, It's Rad†enough to make Sinners and Saints a somewhat entertaining experience.
Sinners and Saints stars (ahem) Johnny Strong as Sean Riley, a cop who plays against the rules. He doesn't bother with procedure, he's quick on the draw, and he's been known to shoot an unarmed perp in cold blood for gunning down his partner. As a result, Riley is also being investigated by Internal Affairs, something that his boss (Tom Berenger) keeps warning him about; but Riley is too badass. Did I mention that he doesn't play by the rules? The source of his rage seems to be that his son died of leukemia, which is shown through Sean's frequent visits to the cemetery; not unlike the dead wife-visiting Martin Riggs of Lethal Weapon fame.
Unfortunately for Riley, he can't spend all of his time brooding. There's a group of ex-military mercenaries in town, and they're involved in some nasty business, not unlike Mr. Joshua and The General of Lethal Weapon fame. Torturing their targets by lighting them on fire, extinguishing them, lighting them on fire again, extinguishing them, etc, etc, this group somehow has ties to an old buddy of Riley's, who gives him a package and warns him of impending danger. Riley, however, is apparently very stupid, and puts the package in his house and forgets about it, because his friend is unreliable and therefore not worth helping out. But when the mercenaries step it up and kill a girl that Riley apparently knows quite well and make fun of his dead son, he does a whole bunch of violent stuff to make them pay. Oh, and he gets teamed up with a black dude from the FBI and gets invited over to his house to have a beer and some dinner and gets to know them…not unlike the Roger Murtaugh storyline of Lethal Weapon fame.
Simply put, Sinners and Saints is a shambling mess of a film that obviously drew most of its ideas from the Lethal Weapon films. Sadly, it's missing what makes Lethal Weapon so awesome; a real human connection between some solid actors, superdope action directing, mullets, and Gary Busey. What's left? Not much. Some strange CGI overlays, bizarre choices in composition, sudden switches in colour and contrast…like Director William Kaufman couldn't make up his mind. As mentioned, it does venture into being so bad that it's good….but it's a long, painful ride getting there.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Sinners and Saints comes to Anchor Bay blu-ray in a 2.35:1 transfer that looks okay. It's actually very hard to tell if it looks okay with all of the strange colour and contrast changes going on in the film. But there aren't any noticeable artifacts visible, and the black levels are decent. The Dolby True HD 5.1 audio track is what you would expect for a film of this type; heavy on the surrounds, heavy on the bass, with explosions and gunshots going off everywhere for a pleasant sonic experience. No hiss present, and dialogue is always clear and coherent.
A couple of extras can also be found on the disc. First up is a Behind The Scenes that runs almost 4 minutes, made up primarily of on-set footage.
Next up are the Deleted Scenes, in which Tom Berenger fans are treated to about 3 extra seconds of the guy who should've played more of a role in the movie. The Deleted Scenes run 7 minutes.
The Final Word:
In this day and age, should we really have to settle for bad 80's action ripoffs? Absolutely not; there are plenty of amazing films in the Cannon catalogue alone that are worth revisiting hundreds of times before having to resort to watching a film like Sinners and Saints.
Only thing worth noting is that one of the Boondock Saints, Sean Patrick Flannery, is in the film and gets taken to a pub called....wait for it...The Boondock Saint.