Overrun

Directed by Josh Tessier, Overrun follows ex-special ops agent Marcus Lombardi (Omid Zader) as he encounters a variety of obstacles while trying to rescue his sister from a vicious mob boss (Robert Miano’s Ray Barren). It’s a familiar premise that’s employed to mostly underwhelming and uninvolving effect by Tessier, as the filmmaker, armed with Roberto Ahumada and Victoria González’s cliché-ridden screenplay, delivers a sluggish actioner that contains few, if any, elements designed to initially capture and sustain the viewer’s attention – with the low-rent, arms-length atmosphere compounded by Zader’s charisma-free turn as the one-dimensional central character (ie there’s never a point at which one is able to work up the slightest bit of interest in Marcus’ progressively perilous exploits). There’s little doubt, then, that Overrun‘s sporadically tolerable vibe is due almost entirely to its decent action sequences and proliferation of familiar faces within the supporting cast, with, in terms of the latter, the picture benefiting rather substantially from the efforts of such agreeable periphery players as Johnny Messner, Nicholas Turturro, and Bruce Dern. (Dern’s character has a speech towards the end, for example, that remains a highlight within the entire production.) By the time the violent yet distressingly prolonged climax rolls around, Overrun has undoubtedly cemented its place as a palpable misfire that might’ve been tolerable had virtually any other performer been cast in the central role.

** out of ****