Ignition (2002)

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

The movie runs out of plot and jokes well before the end of a two-hour running time, long for a light comedy.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Despite being fired for drug use and violent conduct, Conor Gallagher returns as a US Marshall to protect lawyer Faith Mattis when her life is threatened as part of some sort of bombing campaign against certain high-profile people. At first Gallagher tires of Mattis' attitude and accepts her threat of having him reassigned. But when he saves her life from an attack, he is kept on and finds himself rescuing her from a solider that has gone awol and thinks someone is trying to kill him. Starting to put the pieces together with her though, brings both of them into danger from powers that are more than just criminal.The presence of Bill Pullman made me overlook the Monday night slot on channel 5 – usually a dumping ground for direct-to-video action movies with no names and no real value. When the film opens with a nicely washed out scene, I also ignored the clichés of the shoot-out and the predictable route it takes. However the next scene is 9 months later and Gallagher is "washed-up™" but brought back into the fold and it was here that I realised this was only going one way. The film keeps the actual "plot" at bay for the majority of the running time and instead just keeps producing narrow misses and bangs along with some vague attempts at characterisation. When the true plot actually comes out, it is pretty poor and unconvincing – with the ideas being as realistic as the shuttle backdrop.The bangs are just wheeled out with little realism and they didn't engage me at all, while the characters aren't anything interesting or different. The film's mood swings around as well – at times it wants to be serious but other times we have joking in the face of danger; the swings don't fit together that well and gives the film an unsure feel. The cast are caught up in this and it shows. Pullman tries to do something serious with the role but also ends up being a clichéd quipping action star; he never fitted into the genre and I couldn't shake the feeling that he is really better than this. Olin also seems ill at ease in it and comes across like she is trying to do something with nothing (and achieving nothing). Feore is a "rent-a-baddie" here and adds little value, while Kent and Harris are just henchmen to be knocked off after a bit of stand-offing. Lea and Ironside are familiar faces but add nothing more than that.Overall this is an average thriller at best. All the clichés are there and are delivered without imagination or effort by a cast who mostly deserve to be in better stuff than this. No better or worse than a lot of the video thrillers doing the rounds as television filler but that isn't any sort of recommendation.

Ignition is not the best movie I've ever seen. On the other hand, it's not the worst movie I've ever seen either. The film's plot is at least plausible; particularly in today's atmosphere of terrorism and the military's ever growing power to `contain' it. One can imagine a rouge military officer or two taking matters into their own hands so as to `do their duty'.As for the acting in the film, again, not the best, but not the worst. Bill Pullman plays `Conner Gallagher' the rough around the edges body guard, and Lena Olin plays `Faith Mattis' the federal judge Gallagher is assigned to protect. Both Pullman and Olin turn in descent performances. As for the rest of the cast, well, the acting goes steadily down hill form there. As with any B-movie like Ignition, checking your sense of reality at the door helps one enjoy the movie. However with some B-flicks, no amount of imagination can make the movie watchable. Ignition is certainly at least one cut above that kind of movie. And, in fact, it might even be a bit better than that. Over all, if you don't have anything better to do, watch it. You might like it.

I expected a B grade movie - but this was MUCH better than B grade.Well directed, produced and acted and INTELLIGENT (a rare commodity these days).It's not the best movie I've ever seen, but it's a better quality movie than most of the so-called "block-busters" I've seen recently...

Routinish, yet sometimes entertaining, action and suspense flick which worst sin is not taking itself seriously. It all becomes more and more implausible along the way and the script writer seems to realize it by adding some humor. No problem with that except the movie didn't start like a great joke and even seemed a nice variation on Ridley Scott's "Someone to watch over me", with an exciting subplot involving the U.S. army. Watch it just for fun and, of course, for the amazing Lena Olin.