The Death and Life of Bobby Z (2007)

It's not very often I take much of a chance on films that go directly to DVD, especially when they have absolutely no one I really enjoy watching, but a while back I took a chance on The Death and Life of Bobby Z and finally got around to watching it.  In terms of direct to DVD action Steven Seagal films are about the only ones I can stomach watching, but Bobby Z has a B-movie absurdity about it that actually made it somewhat enjoyable, if only to the point of how much worse can it possibly get.

Mediocre action star Paul Walker is a former Marine, Tim Kearney, now serving out the rest of his life in prison for a few petty crimes and the murder of an inmate who was trying to kill him.  Luck happens to be on his side when officer Tad Gruzsa (Laurence Fishburne) comes a calling offering him a chance at freedom.  Turns out Kearney is a pretty good reselmbance to a successful drug dealer named Bobby Z, a man who is supposedly dead and wanted by a Mexican drug-lord for a deal and in exchange they'll release Gruzsa's partner.  If Kearney agrees to impersonate Bobby Z he'll become a free man, as long as the Mexican mafia doesn't kill him.  With not much to lose Kearney agrees, unfortunatley for him he's being played by Gruzsa whose only interested in killing him not handing him over to the Mexicans.  Kearney lucks out and narrowly misses a gun shot to the head, but now he's got the Mexican mafia on his tail along with Gruzsa and the biker gang of the guy he killed in prison.

The Death and Life of Bobby Z is one of those action films that becomes more unbelievable and corny as it progresses, yet it still manages to hold your attention if only to see what happens next.  There are quite a few plot twists to the film which are actually pretty surprising but that's only because they're so out of the blue that you don't expect them, they don't make the story any better they only progress it to a whole new level of absurdity.  The ending strongly solidifies this as Kearney uses his "dual" identity to confuse the biker gang into believing he's not who they think he is, but he's Bobby Z.  Overall, it's a mediocre action film that deserved nothing more than a direct to DVD release.  I recently saw it played on one of the cable HD movie channels, so if you happen to see it and have nothing better to do it might be worth a look if absurd action films are your thing.  An added bonus is it co-stars the lovely Olivia Wilde who was recently named Maxim's #1 most beautiful for 2009, so if anything you can't go wrong there.

5/10