Darkmatters Review: The Cold Light of Day

The Cold Light of Day (12a)

Dir. Mabrouk El Mechri

Reviewed by Matt Adcock

Somewhere in picture book looking Spain, all American chap Will Shaw (Henry ‘next superman’ Cavill) is in a spot of bother…

He’s on the run after his mum and dad, brother and his fiancée are abducted by nefarious bad guys – who also seem to want young Will dead. What’s a guy to do? Well obviously hook up with a sexy Spanish chic Lucia (Verónica Echegui) and run about trying to work out what the heck is going on.

It’s all about a briefcase which contains some tops plans or something and at least two groups of rogue intelligence factions are prepared to kill anyone in their way to secure it. Wills’ dad turns out to be none other than Bruce Willis who adds a little bit of gritty class to the film but only for the 10 minutes or so that he’s in it!?

So in The Cold Light of Day the film really doesn’t add to much – the baddies are led by the not scary at all Sigourney Weaver who appears to be playing the same character that she did in the underwhelming Abduction. She scowls and fires guns but she is clearly here just for the pay cheque (as are most of the cast).

"Bruce - it's so good to be working with you! (for the next ten minutes!?)"

For a so called ‘action thriller’ The Cold Light of Day is light on action and pretty much devoid of thrills – these are 93 minutes of your life that you won’t get back. The dialogue is inadvertently laughable and random, Echegui looks great but shouts things like “areeba!”, straight faced to camera… What is this? Speedy Gonzales?

As a big fan of car chases, gunfights and action movies in general, it takes something really stinky to make me lose all interest and even wish that they’d just get on with it rather than having the chance to relish some high octane thrills.

Director Mabrouk El Mechri shouldn’t be allowed near this genre ever again, we can only hope that this film doesn’t make enough cash to warrant a sequel!? I actually felt sorry for Henry Cavill, he looks awesome and is the only person here actually trying to make a decent fist of the film.

But there is no saving The Cold Light of Day – this is one to avoid unless you have a strange condition where you love mediocre films…

Out of a potential 5 you have to go with a Darkmatters:

ö1/2

1.5 – poor effort from all concerned!

Awesomeness ö – s-l-o-w and mostly dull

Laughs öö – the dialogue is laughable

Horror ö – when anyone gets hurt the audience are likely to shout "and that's from me!"

Babes ööö – Verónica Echegui is hot

Spiritual Enlightenment -öö – the pain in Spain falls mostly on the Zzzzzzzzz

"sexy but really can't act!"