The Cold Light of Day (2012) starring Henry Cavill, Sigourney Weaver, Veronica Echegui, Bruce Willis, Joseph Mawle directed by Mabrouk El Mechri Movie Review

The Cold Light of Day (2012)   2/52/52/52/52/5


Henry Cavill in The Cold Light of Day (2012)

Leaves You Cold

With things strained with his business back in America the last thing which Will Shaw (Henry Cavill) needs is to head to Spain for the annual family boating holiday as his relationship with his father Martin (Bruce Willis) is even more strained. But when Will returns to the boat after another argument with his father and having stropped off in to town he finds his entire family missing and becomes suspicious that there is something going on when he reports it to the police. It is then that Martin shows up and explains to Will the truth, that he is a CIA operative and the family have been kidnapped with just 24 hours to deliver a package or else they will never be seen again and so together go to see Martin's old partner Jean (Sigourney Weaver). The trouble is who can they trust?

I try not to do this but if you go looking for opinions on "The Cold Light of Day" you will find people proclaiming it to be horrible and the worst movie ever made. It isn't as trust me there are a lot of worse movies out there but at the same time "The Cold Light of Day" is disappointing as it attempts to trade on the high energy of the "Bourne" movies but struggles to get the audience gripped by what is going on.

Sigourney Weaver in The Cold Light of Day (2012)

Part of the trouble with "The Cold Light of Day" is the nonsense of a script which doesn't make a great deal of sense. Yes we have Martin who is secret CIA with bad guys basically blackmailing him by kidnapping his family but all the little details of the story don't logically add up. But here is the truth as the believability of the script is not the concern here as the whole purpose of "The Cold Light of Day" is to show Henry Cavill as an action figure and so as long as the movie gets you hooked on the action the details are not important.

But that is the trouble with "The Cold Light of Day" as the action side of things which sees Will having to run from and do battle with bad guys is not that exciting. In fairness it isn't bad as it ticks a number of action movie boxes but it lacks something to make it really come to life and keep your attention. And sadly that something could be Henry Cavill as whilst he has the right look for what ever reason his character lacks charisma which makes him less than interesting be it during awkward moments of dialogue or when he is being action man.

The sad thing about all of this is that of course "The Cold Light of Day" also features Bruce Willis and Sigourney Weaver but both end up being disappointing as especially in the case of Willis they are bit parts. It almost feels like the producers went for two big name stars to lull audiences in to watching as they knew without the star pulling power it might struggle to attract audiences.

What this all boils down to is that "The Cold Light of Day" is disappointing and not the exciting action movie it could have been. But trust me whilst flawed and not exciting enough it is not the absolute stinker which some people make it out to be.


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