This C-level action movie is overly ambitious, overly complicated and almost interesting. There are moments when it seems to be going beyond well worn clichés, but then you realize that's due to bad casting and poor writing. Ignition is fast paced, has a decent amount of action and throws in just enough gratuitous nudity and profanity to get an R rating. It's better than most low-budget flicks of this type, but features a lead actress who is not at all what the typical fan of this genre wants to look at.
Conor Gallagher (Bill Pullman) is a U.S. Marshal with a checkered past. He was addicted to pills, involved in a deadly shootout that left 3 other Marshals dead, lost his marriage and hasn't seen his daughter in a year and a half. Despite all that, as well as being the sort of maniac who shoots his washing machine when it acts up, he's assigned to guard federal judge Faith Mattis (Lena Olin) after an attempt on her life. What Conor and Faith quickly get caught up in is a military scandal with a renegade witness and U.S. Army death squads running all over the place. After Conor is framed for beating up a crack whore, he and the judge go on the run to get to the bottom of a mystery that improbably turns into an attempted coup and what technically has to be the biggest "running away while something explodes behind you" scene in movie history.
There's no other way to put this except to be blunt. The biggest problem with Ignition is that Lena Olin looks way too old to be playing this part in this sort of film. She can still be sexy, just not as the lead female in an action flick. Yes, it wouldn't have made any sense to cast some hot 28 year old as a federal judge. That doesn't really matter in a story that's already asking you to believe the President of the United States travels in a motorcade consisting of two motorcycle cops and a few stretch limos; that has a group of military officers discuss treason like white guys at a country club making jokes about Jews; and has not one, not two, but three "running away while something explodes behind you" scenes. Casting Olin here is like making Helen Mirren the love interest in a Steven Seagal movie.
Olin's inappropriateness for this material actually makes you think they're trying to do something different. It causes Faith's quarrelsome relationship with Conor to look like something more than the tired, old act where the two leads drive each other crazy until they fall in love. Then they do fall in love and you realize it was just the same tired, old stuff.
Ignition also appears to be going a different way when it lets Conor have an entirely reasonable reaction to the discovery of the secret military plot. He doesn't want to do anything about it. He wants to let somebody else handle it because he's more concerned about his own personal situation. But then he abandons that surprisingly non-heroic stance for no apparent reason and starts doing the same stuff as every other action movie hero.
This movie also has too many characters and too much plot that just kills time until Ignition is long enough to qualify as a legitimate feature film. It's nice for a while to watch an action flick that's a bit more involved, but when you end up with two separate reluctant witnesses to the military plot and a main villain, the main villain's chief henchman, the chief henchman's sub-henchman and a bunch of cannon fodder, in addition to ex-spouses for both lead characters, it goes a step too far. It's all a bunch of manufactured nonsense to compensate for not having enough real story to last for 90 minutes.
This movie is well acted and well directed enough to be entertaining, if you can get past the fact that the main sex object of this melodrama looks like she's a member of AARP.
Conor Gallagher (Bill Pullman) is a U.S. Marshal with a checkered past. He was addicted to pills, involved in a deadly shootout that left 3 other Marshals dead, lost his marriage and hasn't seen his daughter in a year and a half. Despite all that, as well as being the sort of maniac who shoots his washing machine when it acts up, he's assigned to guard federal judge Faith Mattis (Lena Olin) after an attempt on her life. What Conor and Faith quickly get caught up in is a military scandal with a renegade witness and U.S. Army death squads running all over the place. After Conor is framed for beating up a crack whore, he and the judge go on the run to get to the bottom of a mystery that improbably turns into an attempted coup and what technically has to be the biggest "running away while something explodes behind you" scene in movie history.
There's no other way to put this except to be blunt. The biggest problem with Ignition is that Lena Olin looks way too old to be playing this part in this sort of film. She can still be sexy, just not as the lead female in an action flick. Yes, it wouldn't have made any sense to cast some hot 28 year old as a federal judge. That doesn't really matter in a story that's already asking you to believe the President of the United States travels in a motorcade consisting of two motorcycle cops and a few stretch limos; that has a group of military officers discuss treason like white guys at a country club making jokes about Jews; and has not one, not two, but three "running away while something explodes behind you" scenes. Casting Olin here is like making Helen Mirren the love interest in a Steven Seagal movie.
Olin's inappropriateness for this material actually makes you think they're trying to do something different. It causes Faith's quarrelsome relationship with Conor to look like something more than the tired, old act where the two leads drive each other crazy until they fall in love. Then they do fall in love and you realize it was just the same tired, old stuff.
Ignition also appears to be going a different way when it lets Conor have an entirely reasonable reaction to the discovery of the secret military plot. He doesn't want to do anything about it. He wants to let somebody else handle it because he's more concerned about his own personal situation. But then he abandons that surprisingly non-heroic stance for no apparent reason and starts doing the same stuff as every other action movie hero.
This movie also has too many characters and too much plot that just kills time until Ignition is long enough to qualify as a legitimate feature film. It's nice for a while to watch an action flick that's a bit more involved, but when you end up with two separate reluctant witnesses to the military plot and a main villain, the main villain's chief henchman, the chief henchman's sub-henchman and a bunch of cannon fodder, in addition to ex-spouses for both lead characters, it goes a step too far. It's all a bunch of manufactured nonsense to compensate for not having enough real story to last for 90 minutes.
This movie is well acted and well directed enough to be entertaining, if you can get past the fact that the main sex object of this melodrama looks like she's a member of AARP.