Review: Blunt Force Trauma

Two opponents line up about twenty feet apart, each within a marked boundary, each with a loaded handgun. They wear bullet-proof vests and holsters. The aim is to knock your opponent back with a shot or volley of bullets when the referee finishes a countdown. Intentionally or accidentally hitting the other person anywhere other than the vest is an automatic forfeit.

Now, I don’t know about you, but that sounds like an absolutely, positively insane way to get your jollies. Unfortunately for Blunt Force Trauma, this central premise ties the entire movie together – meaning that my incredulity prevented me from fully engaging with an otherwise, well scripted and produced character piece.

[youtube id=”nJnXJ_THuvg” align=”center” maxwidth=”530″]

The story follows the character of John, played by True Blood‘s Ryan Kwanten. He is a formidable opponent in the game but he strives to fight the elusive champion of the sport, Zorringer, played by Mickey Rourke. Playing insano-shot (I will coin this phrase) against random opponents, John hopes to one day catch the eye of Zorringer and take on the master – but first, he must find him.

As he has spent enough time in the game, he knows a few other fighters – a fact that brings him to the attention of Colt, played by Freida Pinto. She is looking for a man who fought her brother and killed him. The pair make a cross-country trip to meet with one of Zorringer’s representatives – John hoping to meet his match, Colt hoping to avenge her brother.

The opening scene sets up the game in a relatively dialogue-free first few minutes. The hope, it seems, is to establish the rules of the game quickly and ramp up the tension from the start. I can confirm that it succeeds in precisely one of these goals. I understood the game from the beginning but that did not stop my head from shaking every time a ‘fight’ occurs. And there are lots of fights, from established games to forced encounters orchestrated by corrupt cops. Each time, the appeal of the game and its inherent danger is meant to thrill but it simply never works as intended.

This is disappointing as I largely enjoyed the interplay between Kwanten and Pinto – even Rourke brings his own unique charisma to proceedings, even if it is just in the closing scenes. The acting isn’t bad and the script is serviceable. However, insano-shot taints everything.

Even the moments where the script aims to elevate the game to more than it is – describing it as ‘a moment of form and grace’ – robs the actors of the ability to sell their characters to any great degree. If this had been street boxing, hand-to-hand combat or even simply poker, Blunt Force Trauma may have entertained me more than it did. You could practically leave the script untouched and it would have been a more plausible story. As it is, it simply never engaged with me.

Blunt Force Trauma is let down from the start by a poorly thought out central plot device that completely stops the movie in its tracks. Any tension mustered is quickly lost when you think for a moment about the idea of standing opposite someone with a loaded gun in an attempt to win money by shooting them in a relatively small target – all the while, they shoot at you! If one’s mind is thinking about the plot device rather than the characters and plot itself, you have lost your audience.