The Cold Light of Day should be kept in the cold dark of night. Sigourney mother flippin' Weaver. She's my double-edged sword. I love her for just being so damn perfect, but I also hate her for starring in incoherently dull rubbish like this. Understandably originality is hard to achieve, particularly in the action department. Therefore the least a director can do is make the shootouts, car chases and burly brawls exhilarating to make up for the monotonous plot. Alas, El Mechri was unable to achieve that. Yawn! With his family kidnapped, a young businessman is on the run to find a briefcase but is caught up in government corruption.
Essentially the character premise from the 'Bourne' franchise and the action from any generic straight-to-DVD piece of rubbish. The positives to take away are simple. Sigourney Weaver. One point for any scene when she is holding a gun. Another point for any scene she talks in. And a final point for any scene she is in. Full stop. Everyone else, minus Cavill who attempts to give it his all, looked tired and bored. Willis couldn't be bothered (no surprise...). Cavill, built like an absolute brick, runs for the entire film crying.
The action, whilst tolerable for the most part, was uninspired and contained far too many pretentious camera shots. Zooming into a mirror during a car chase acting as a scene transition may have made me go "oooh", but then I remembered I'm watching this. Admirably inventive, but relentlessly obnoxious in comparison to the rest of the film. The characters had no personality. The story is sluggish, yet functional I'll give it that. The lighting, well, whoever controlled that completely ignored the title of the film. It sounds like I'm savaging this snooze-fest, in all honesty it's not the worst action film I've seen. The start was strong and Sigourney Weaver. The rest? Eh. I'll pass. But Sigourney, babe, get a new agent. Please.
