A Man Apart

Directed by F. Gary Gray, A Man Apart follows DEA agent Sean Vetter (Vin Diesel) as he embarks on a campaign of revenge after his wife (Jacqueline Obradors’ Stacy) is murdered by a drug cartel. It’s a familiar yet thoroughly promising setup that’s employed to mostly underwhelming and uninvolving effect by Gray, as the filmmaker, working from a script by Christian Gudegast and Paul Scheuring, delivers a sluggish thriller that’s been saddled with a whole host of lackluster elements – including an overall lack of action, Jack N. Green’s egregiously dim cinematography, and Diesel’s dour, charisma-free performance. (The latter is especially problematic given that his character, as a result, never becomes the compelling protagonist one might’ve anticipated, which does, in turn, make it increasingly difficult to work up any real interest in or enthusiasm for Sean’s vendetta-focused exploits.) And while the picture admittedly does contain a small handful of agreeable attributes, with this particularly true of Timothy Olyphant’s small but memorable turn as a flashy, sleazy high-end drug dealer, A Man Apart builds towards a fairly endless (and decidedly unsatisfying) climax that ensures the whole thing ends on a rather forgettable note – thus securing the movie’s place as an almost watchable misfire that feels like it should be so much better.

** out of ****