I can’t start this review without asking the same question I kept posing myself during this film; What are they trying to achieve? Give ‘Em Hell Malone is a bloody, violent and often dispassionate nod to classic noir films of yesteryear, but it plays as less a film designed for entertainment, and more an audition tape from a filmmaker desperate for recognition.
My argument to that would be keep your auditions between yourselves, and let me know when you make a film for the rest of us…
Having said that ‘Malone’ isn’t awful, just mostly dull and misdirected. Thomas Jane plays Malone the same way he played The Punisher – a far superior film by the way – he even has the same surly attitude and hatred of life that Frank Castle had.
In this film he is on a mission that sees him meet many dames, thugs, goons and heavies with oddball names – many of these people have a middle name ‘the’, as in Freddy ‘the’ Bruiser, or Ernie ‘the’ Eel. Regardless of strange monikors Malone crosses paths with them all, and blows many of them away while spouting dialogue better suited to panels on black and white pages.
Unlike these panels many characters in the film aren’t black and white, but a shade somewhere in between, not many are entirely good or totally bad, including Malone himself, even the quote-unquote ‘bad guys’ Boulder and Matchstick have some redeeming qualities or at least justification for their actions – OK maybe not the pyromaniac psychopath Matchstick.
The film has more blood, profanity and violence than you’d think, but without the knowing ain’t it crazy wink to the crowd it just becomes a violent flick with out of place dialogue, like a latter day Tarantino film but without the blinkered crowd to mindlessly accept it.
So instead of asking once again why this film was made, it might be more appropriate to point out this film was released in 2009 and it took me three years to find it. This universal ignorance seems to suggest that no-one else could bother to work out why it was made as well.
Final Rating – 6 / 10. The opening action scene is actually pretty fun, the following 85 minutes drag quite a bit though.
