Bad Ass is the perfect example of an action film that satisfies. Well, it satisfies Baby Boomers who enjoy shitty acting from a washed-up, only-good-for-cameos action star and awful plots that reinforce old stereotypes while simultaneously making you lose faith in the future of cinema. Satisfaction at its lowest. Bad Ass is an awful film that I feel was only made because someone mutually knew Danny Trejo and he owed them a favor for whatever reason, so he did this film. There is no entertainment value, and this movie only makes the audience wonder "why is he still making movies?"
There is not anything necessarily wrong or offensive about this film, but it is simply boring and predictable. The performances in this film were so bland, and I don't think any of the actors and actresses involved gave any effort to this project. As much as I love the campy and classic Machete movies, Danny Trejo should stick to doing cameos and small appearances, as his actual acting skill is not great. Along with the terrible performances, every character in the film was unnecessarily stereotyped to their skin color. The African-Americans were the gangsters that ruled the "hood," the Mexicans were the drug dealers who ran a criminal empire, and the African-American woman was the single mother with a knack for cooking. These roles were so generic, and I didn't appreciate the representation of them. The only role that I was surprised wasn't so stereotyped was the titular character Frank, played by Trejo. Then again, this was probably because he owed someone a favor and had to act in this.
My main problem with this film was that every aspect was very predictable and unoriginal. If they were aiming to make an action film targeted towards the senior citizen age group that was simple-to-follow and generic, than the producers succeeded. But other than that, there is no value at all. This film follows the basic steps of all action films: protagonist introductions, antagonist introductions, antagonists kill friend of protagonist, protagonist wants to get revenge, protagonist gets revenge and the girl, and throw in a cameo or two (Ron Perlman). All with the aid of a cringe-worthy theme song written for the film. I would expect these elements from films of any other time period, like the 70's or 80's, but this is the 21st century, and one might expect a little more effort put into developing their story. Not this one, though! The writing was filled with one-liners that didn't belong, and all of the characters were so one-sided and underdeveloped. All signs of a great film, right?
Bad Ass, unlike the title suggests, is not a bad ass movie, but rather just bad. Riddled with boring and general themes, this film aims to achieve absolutely nothing. The story is not interesting in the slightest, and I would definitely not recommend this film. Unless you are completely out of other ideas on how to waste time.
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