REVIEW: ABSOLUTION

If you are a fan of the DEATH WISH franchise, then James Dean's "Absolution" might be tailor-made for you. A Viet Nam veteran, The Old Man (John Mefford) who's seen better days encounters couple of young punks, followed shortly by a blood covered young woman, Joey (Mariana Garcia Montes) while walking home from the store one night, and the trouble only goes up from there.

The Old Man takes her in and patches her up and then begins the search to find out what happened, which eventually leads to a series of escalating confrontations with the gang that the two punks belong to.

While the cast as a whole delivers decent to serviceable performances, the two standouts in my opinion are gang-leader Two Pump (Harry Kolmer) and Sam (Brian Davis) the son of The Old Man's war buddy.

Kolmer brings some real menace to the role of the villainous gang leader serving under drug kingpin Christopher (Kurt Aubuchon) and Davis has some serious bad-ass vibes that add a bit more weight to the story.

Overall, the pace of "Absolution" is a tad slow, and it does feel a little rough around the edges, but the action scenes are well handled and the film does a great job of channeling the "Old Man takes on a gang of Street Punks" subgenre of films. Again, this is micro-budget cinema, so don't expect the polish of DEATH WISH or GRAN TORINO, but this movie does harken back to the old Cannon Films days, and that ain't a bad thing!