Don’t let anyone remove the firing pin from your pistol, because Bullet to the Head is the Greatest Movie EVER!
Click on the movie poster or the title above to download our review of the film, featuring Mom.
Review in a Nutshell: In terms of tone, narrative, and characterization, Bullet to the Head is an atavism – a throwback to an earlier time period. It’s also an unlikely hybrid of hard-boiled crime drama and buddy-cop action film. Some of it works, some of it doesn’t, but Bullet is worth examining if only to see how drastically modern film sensibilities have changed.
The Greatest Movie EVER! Podcast 
I steered clear of this because it was a Stallone movie that, from the name, would shit all over one of John Woo’s classics. Of course, none of the publicity I remember at the time said it was based on a French graphic novel and was directed by Walter “THE WARRIORS” Hill – so I remained ignorant that it wasn’t…Stallone Shitting All Over John Woo until now.
Hey Paul, when I asked about the movie being dull and lifeless, what I meant to ask was how is how did the director who gave us great movies like Streets of Fire, The Warriors, 48 hrs etc make a movie that was on par with the dull and lifeless Expendable movies and the Statham Parker flick that came out at the same time. I honestly think I was expecting too much as a fan Stallone and Hill from the 70’s and 80’s but Bullet just lacked a sense of fun for me. Anyways I just wanted to point out that not everyone who disliked the movie is necessarily spoiled by modern movies.
Hey, Chris. I didn’t mean to imply that was what was going on in your case; I was just proposing a reason why I might be seeing as much negative feedback in the comments of the Facebook page. I was speaking extemporaneously, and during editing I realized that my words may have conveyed a meaning I didn’t really intend.
I hit pause on this one weeks ago the second I heard the words “Expendables 3” said aloud, since I had no idea how much was going to be discussed about those movies. Now that I’ve seen the movie and know full well that DRUMMER’S IN THE HOUSE, I was able to finish up this episode.
The John Woo film Bullet in the Head came out after The Killer and was a colossal bomb in Hong Kong, such that as far as I know I don’t believe it has ever been officially released in the United States either on VHS, DVD, or Blu-Ray. It is relatively slow-paced–yet another of those “the director wanted it to be 3 hours long, the studio demanded it be under 2, so there are multiple cuts” sorts of deals–and doesn’t really feature the trademark “John Woo” cinematic stylings since it’s mostly a war story in keeping with “Heroes Shed No Tears,” another of his early war-themed works that’s got some strange tonal shifts. I think the movie’s reputation is born more out of the fact that John Woo often cites it as his favorite than out of lots of people having seen it. It’s got sort of a “Zeta Gundam, pre-DVD release” status. Sure, I liked it, but to be fair I also liked Windtalkers.
As for Bullet to the Head, I enjoyed it thoroughly for how unrepentantly crass it was while simultaneously having the Asian guy steal the girl. It wasn’t quite gonzo enough to take the title away from say, From Paris With Love, but it was met with similar levels of critical and commercial disdain. The one-two rejections by audiences of both this as well as my beloved Lockout within the same year made 2012 bittersweet indeed.
Yeah, Daryl Surat – but since it’s a movie Woo’s fond of, that gave it geek creed. I agree it was slower going than Woo’s most successful international hits, but I think it was also a deeper story.
I would have sworn there was a US release – though I got the DVD Tammy and I saw from Kim’s Video in NYC when we lived there, so it’s possible they rented us a region-free import.
Anyway, my bad mixing up “Bullet In the Head” with “Bullet To the Head”, which I’ve been doing since I first saw the publicity for this film. My not liking Stallone at all may have had something to do with my never bothering to find out any more regarding this movie….