Product Description

KEENAN IVORY WAYANS LITERALLY TAKES IT TO, AND OVER, THE EDGE TO UNCOVER A WEB OF CONSPIRACY AND REVENGE IN THIS ADRENALINE PUMPING ACTION THRILLER.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #34640 in DVD
• Brand: NEW LINE HOME VIDEO
• Released on: 1998-02-18
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Full Screen, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, French
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish, French
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 99 minutes

Customer Reviews

Better than you'd expect, but not that much better
Synopsis:
In a nutshell, Most Wanted is about a death row, military convict named James Dunn who is recruited from death row to serve in an elite CIA black squad group. The convict is framed for the murder of the First Lady of the United States, a murder he didn't commit. He escapes with his life, then seeks to find the real killer and bring them to justice.

About the Movie:
Overall, this is a mediocre movie. Yet despite that and its plot holes and its fairly unimaginative plot, it can be entertaining in spots. I like this one a lot better than a lot of the action sludge out there, including a lot of the oldies. Of course, it still won't win any award, except maybe a Razzie.

Interestingly enough, Most Wanted stands a career side road for comedian Keenan Ivory Wayans, who's probably best known for his work in "In Living Color" in the 90's. Most Wanted is intended as a serious action film. While there is some humor in the film, it's the action hero variety and not the slap stick brand Wayans is known for. He stars instead as a serious action hero and surprisingly doesn't do as badly as one would expect. While he'll never make a career as an action star, he does pull off the roll, albeit with a lot of cheesy and stagy lines here and there.

The movie co-stars Jon Voight, as very predictably, the villain. This movie, perhaps more than many of the others he's been in, really does reveal what an over-actor he is. Scenes with Voight are almost painful to watch because he so overplays his character that the character becomes a grotesque characature. His over-acting is so bad that he actually was nominated in 1998 in this role for a Razzie for *worst* supporting actor. That's quite a distinction.

The movie also co-stars Jill Hennessy as a doctor who becomes Dunn's unlikely side-kick. In a movie with no female roles except for the First Lady, (who shows up just long enough to get shot and killed) she provides Most Wanted's only female lure. She isn't terrible in her role, but she does very little to make her shine either. Mostly, she's there to add the female element and look pretty.

On the up side, the best played role in the film turns out to be played by Paul Sorvino in CIA Director Kenny Rackburn. Sorvino's solid acting, and charming style help to raise the movie up a notch. It also helps that he's so easy to like. Sorvino provides a nice counterpoint to Voight's horrible and stagey overacting.

Plotwise, Most Wanted isn't really very original. Thankfully, the story moves in a good pace, and despite its predictability and plot holes you could drive a bus through, it still manages to hold your interest throughout. Some of the stunts and special effects are pretty good, and there are a number of action sequences that are a lot of fun (if also a little unbelievable). This one would never get any awards (except a Razzie), but it still can be a fun watch, especially if you've got a bunch of buddies with you to poke fun at it with.

About the DVD:
This DVD comes in a cardboard case, marking it as a budget DVD. The DVD itself is a double sided DVD with both wide-screen and full screen versions included. For the most part, it's an entirely unexciting DVD release, with almost no extra features.

The one exception is the separate music track on the DVD. It allows you to watch the movie without any dialog and just the music. I did watch it that way, just for kicks, and found it fascinating to watch from an artistic standpoint to see how the music was used in the movie. I'm not entirely sure what this feature is good for otherwise, unless you leave the TV on occasionally for background noise.

The picture on this DVD isn't too bad, but I did notice some problems with the sound. I'm not sure if this is a problem with the sound editing in the film itself, or the transfer to DVD. Either way, the sound volume seemed to fluctuate at times, lowering and raising so that I was occasionally reaching for my remote to turn up the volume, only to be blasted out of my chair a few minutes later when it returned to its previous levels. It's not a major problem, but it does lower the overall quality of the release and provides a minor distraction while watching.

Bottom Line is that this is a predictable and unoriginal movie in a budget DVD release (with some technical issues). If you're looking for a cream of the crop action film, this is not the place to look. Still, if you like this type of film, you might like this one. 2 stars.

boring
This movie is simply not convincing. It is a movie about big guns and pyrotechnics and nothing else. If there was a zero rating for this movie I would have chosen it!

IVORY COASTS THROUGH THIS ONE
MOST WANTED is filled with such implausible plot developments and cliche characters it would be easy to dismiss it as just another one of those Wayans brothers movies. But writer/star Keenan Ivory Wayans instills such a sincere approach to the goings on that viewers will more than likely get caught up in it in spite of its incredulity. Wayans plays an imprisoned marine who is sentenced to death for the death of his senior officer. On his way to death row, he is "loosed" by megalomanical Jon Voight (in a deliciously hammy performance) to assist in a government sanctioned hit of a drug magnate (Robert Culp). Aha, that's the catch: Voight is really setting up Wayans as the fall guy in the assassination of busybody First Lady Donna Cherry. Wayans teams up with Jill Hennessy (Crossing Jordan) and also entangled Paul Sorvino and Eric Roberts in his attempt to uncover Voight's devious plot. Simon Baker (The Guardian, Ring Two) has a nice turn as a scrupulous journalist and Wolfgang Boddison is a nasty henchman for Voight. All in all, pretty silly stuff but capably done, you can't help but enjoy it.