It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

This is a cheap looking DTV Movie, is that redundant? Not always, but here it is nonetheless, and it reeks of bottom barrel badness. Rapper 50 Cent Produced this thing and he manages to mangle the English Language, swallow His words, and mumble for the complete 30 seconds he is on the Screen. Then has the audacity to put His Name on the Box. Ditto pretty much Val Kilmer, and Vinnie Jones although they don't Mumble they just barely show up.The Colors are washed out and the lighting is awful, the Camera shakes as this announces Action and Excitement. There are many obligatory parades of Babes in varying poses as eye-candy and Gangsta Ho hangers on. The Plot tries to have some Pathos with a Murdered Brother, a White-knight Cop, and a Pregnant Street Gal who must give up "the Life" for her Baby.Nothing here is worth much and it barely reaches the Competency Level and when it does it drops to below standard quickly. Nothing here worth your time unless you must see every Gang-Related Retread made available for a seemingly insatiable Home Video Market.

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning When cop Michael Savion's (Luke Goss) small time hood brother David (Ryan Donowho) is killed by mob boss Elias (Tamer Hassan) for suspected betrayal, he takes it on himself to dispense justice after ineffectual assurances by Detective Hardwick (50 Cent.) After making a name for himself around town, taking down some hard nut local gang bangers, he finds himself invited into Elias's inner circle and asked to work for him. Elias sets his sights on turning Savion into his fighting champ in an up-coming underground fight to determine which criminal empire rules, and where Savion will strike the spring in his tail.Action is one of my favourite genres, easily one of the most entertaining and releasing of the movie art forms. But, defend it though I might, even I couldn't argue with the point that it certainly isn't a genre known for needing your brain or particularly your imagination to much extent. It's unique in the sense that any half wit writer can think up the most lazy, formulaic idea and, as long as it delivers on the 'action' quotient and gives the audience what they've come to see, it can get away with this. For a lot of action films this does work but, while Blood Out is not quite a disaster, the laziness of the story and the join the dots script ends up making it more of a chore to sit through than a simple piece of violent, brainless fun.Debut director Jason Hewitt doesn't seem to have any history of directing music videos, but the frenetic style he uses to shoot the film and tell the story leaves you thinking this might have been a fair assumption to make. The plot is not only simplistic but wavey and slightly incoherent, and coming in at just under an hour and a half, you've still been clock watching to see when it might be over simply on account of how bored you've ended up getting with it. None of the cast can give especially great performances, because all the roles are so generic and one dimensional, from Goss as the 'man out to avenge loved one' good guy to Hassan's cardboard villain. A host of supporting stars, including 50 Cent, Val Kilmer and Vinnie Jones (an interesting appearance, given his and Hassan's reported fisticuffs bust up in which he came off the loser) appear in what end up feeling like minor roles.I guess if you want a simple violent, undemanding action film, Blood Out might do. But this story has been done so many times before and so much better, you might be wiser to search around. Try under Chuck Norris. **

The film is adventurous, some of the scenes are splendidly colourful in a pantomime, burlesque peep show kind of way. The streets look mean, the cops look bad and the baddies look badder, apart from Kilmer who just looks like a camp, fat has-been.Goss plays a cop forced to throw in his badge and infiltrate the underworld to seek revenge for his brother's death. Goss has come along way since his band days, and looks the Jason Streatham'esque mean moody guy who's not to be messed with, but his accent is terrible. At times, English, at times a bit Aussie I think he just manages to get away with it, but it is distracting. His slight frame also has you questioning at times whether really, really he is capable of ploughing into guys twice his size and pummelling them to bits. When he turns sideways he most disappears.That aside, the rest of the cast are great, specifically with regard to Tamer Hassan, who delivers a rock solid performance as the egomaniac Elias. Around him, he is surrounded with a very believable army of thugs and this alone saves the film.I think this was a bit too big for Goss, at this juncture, especially with a non-native accent, but the action, and slow underlying story is believable and keeps you watching.

What do you do when the law doesn't help? After his brother is brutally murdered Sheriff Spencer (Luke Goss) is let down by the people he hoped would help. Taking matters into his own hands he goes undercover in the gang that did it in order to get revenge. Looking at the cover it seems like another 50-cent/Val Kilmer movie, which makes you think twice about getting it. Vinnie Jones, Fiddy and Kilmer have a total screen time of about 2 minutes. Luke Goss is the main star of the movie. I was not expecting a lot being that I thought it as a 50 cent/Kilmer movie, although "Gun" was not as bad as I expected so I had a little more expectations for this one. This was a movie that started off flat and never improved. The acting wasn't as bad as I expected though. It was not terrible, but had all the drama and excitement of watching a dog play fetch, fun for a while then just sitting waiting for it to end. This is a movie that a lot of people will like, I just can't get into this kind of thing. I give it a C-.Would I watch again? - No I wouldn't