Here it comes, get ready to be completely and utterly…underwhelmed. Brand-newbie writer/director Mike Gunther is looking to score Bruce Willis to star alongside 50 Cent and potentially Paul Walker in an upcoming action-riddled heist movie called Set Up. You just yawned didn’t you? Old action star plus rapper-turned-actor plus washed up (but still attractive) actor set against the background of a high-octane heist? I can hear the terrible one-liners and half-baked jokes now.
The story revolves around a group of friends who are “catapulted into the middle of a diamond heist that turns deadly.” Oh, and let me guess, it was one last job. It was all supposed to go according to plan; it wasn’t supposed to go down like this. Now they’re taking matters into their own hands and they’re going to kick ass and take names with a few jokes about explosions and a lame rip off of “yippee-ki-yay, motherf***er” thrown in. Blah blah blah.
While Willis is nowhere near as badass as he was in his Die Hard days, he’s still got enough old-man grit to bring the action. The problem is that 50 Cent is sure to be uncomfortably awful and Walker is often just dead weight (albeit, very pretty dead weight). No matter how much of an action-star Willis is, he can’t exactly be expected to carry a tired story and two mediocre actors.
Grindstone Entertainment/Lionsgate will release the film as the first of a 10-picture deal for producers George Furla and Randall Emmett (Righteous Kill, Rambo). While these guys are no strangers to producing so-so action films, they also unleashed the Jessica Simpson-fueled disaster, Major Movie Star. I’m just saying that good taste may not exactly be their forte.
Source: Variety
