[yasr_overall_rating]
Frank Pierce leads a seemingly normal life, but when a disturbing past reemerges & something precious is taken from him, his mask of sanity loosens & unearths the urge to be violent once again.
Who doesn’t love a good kidnapping movie? Or at least a good revenge one? Through fiction, our baser impulses are liberated and allowed to manifest in harmless ways. The risk of making a film touching on one of those subjects, though, is that it can quickly cross the line into unintentional parody. At the very least, it can invite parody. A satirical take on an adrenaline-packed thriller might feature, for example, a beefy protagonist (the strong, silent type) with a questionable past and a beautiful wife who will take him just how he is, thank you very much. For fun, let’s make him an ex-Marine who is tough as nails on the outside but emotionally vulnerable just below the surface. Sound good so far? Well, here’s the thing – that isn’t satire, that’s real life! It’s the foundation of “Bad Frank,” which is a great title for two reasons: it’s about a guy named Frank, and it’s mostly bad.
I’m being a bit too harsh: “Bad Frank” is by no means terrible. Kevin Interdonato owns his role as the mercurial leading character Frank. The film is edited in such a way to give it a rather ominous feel, which is good considering it stars a moody badass with a supporting cast of appropriately sinister villains. The action sequences are fun, and watching the eponymous Frank go completely off the rails turns out to be something of a guilty pressure. The plot, however, is frustratingly rehashed, and the acting performances sans Interdonato, feel quite hollow.
Frank is a working-class New Jerseyan with a gorgeous wife (Amanda Clayton) who works as a nurse. They somehow live as affluent suburbanites (it is probably safe to assume that they racked up an obscene amount of credit card debt and are months away from taking out a second mortgage), and while everything seems idyllic at first, it is clear there are a number of factors, inducing tension. For one, Frank has a deeply shadowy past, and is also estranged from his parents who want nothing to do with him after his stint as a criminal. Despite being on the straight and narrow, Frank is still prone to angry outbursts, though he does seem to genuinely care about rebuilding his relationships with his parents. Inevitably, he is pulled back into his criminal past by a friend and crosses paths with a small-time smuggler, Mickey (Tom Sizemore), with designs on greater felonious schemes. To exact revenge on Frank after a run-in, Mickey orders the kidnapping of Frank’s blonde bombshell of a wife, Gina.
As previously mentioned, “Bad Frank” hits all the tropes of a cheap thriller. Interdonato’s performance only improves as the film goes on and Frank becomes increasingly unhinged and violent, but he is really the only saving grace of this production. The characters are mostly unsympathetic, and while filial revenge is always a great way to drive a part, it mostly falls flat here. I would recommend giving Liam Neeson’s “Taken” a second or third watch before bothering to give “Frank” a viewing. That said, it isn’t an overall unworthy effort. It is enjoyable in some parts, but mostly stale and plodding in the others. Unless enraged, unstable antiheroes are your thing, there isn’t much of value to be gleaned here.
